Upgrading Windows or other programs?  Be in the know...


Upgrading Windows: If 3D Inspection System was previously installed when you upgrade your system to a newer version of windows, note that you may need to manually reinstall your PDF driver afterward. See appropriate post with instructions for your versions of Windows in the Installation forum section: https://www.3dinspection.com/forums-discussion/10047-installation-and-upgrading

Future 3D Upgrades: Note that importing existing Office Management information into future editions of 3D software will require that data to be in the 11.4.x format, as our next major series release will not be able to convert database data from any version prior to 11.4 series. Therefore we urge users to make sure they have installed the 11.4 version, originally delivered to subscribers last year. It has come to our attention that a number of subscribers apparently overlooked this last upgrade accidentally, and unknowingly are still running an old version. Please take a moment to use Help > About3D to verify your currently installed version number. Note whether it is indeed a 11.4.x version, or something old. If it turns out to be older, then you'll definitely want to take the time to install the newer 11.4 version series, so that you'll be prepared for a smooth transition to future releases and won't leave data behind.

Outlook Interface: Although last year's survey revealed that the Outlook interface to 3D software is rarely used these days, if you happen to be one of those who do still use it, please note that it has also come to our attention that apparently Microsoft's new Outlook 2013 product no longer interfaces properly with the SDK used in the current 3D software. Thus, if you rely on the interface for now, you may wish to avoid upgrading to the new version of Outlook.  The incompatibility may be related to the Office suite recent overhaul for cloud-centricity.

You may have noticed in recent years that all the technology heavyweights, including Microsoft, have trended toward more unified cloud-accessible apps (generally starting with email). Here are related articles of interest:
http://www.microsoft.com/enterprise/it-trends/cloud-computing/
http://www.infinitesource.com/blog/bid/112403/Cloud-Computing-in-2013
http://blog.apptrain.com/2013/03/cloud-based-email-comparison.html

With newer technology making it possible to leverage the benefits of cloud-accessible data, in combination with the results from our user survey last year, future major versions of 3D software will no longer include the old Outlook interface. Instead we hope to find better strategies that allow inspectors to more easily access job information across devices. With that in mind, a couple years of development work has already gone into a major re-design of core 3D software functionality, so as to build the foundation needed to allow for this type of expansion.