This is essential reading if you are planning to upgrade your Impact workstations and database to Impact 2022 (v12). Please ensure you have read and understood all the issues described before you proceed. If you are unsure of anything covered here, please contact your support representative.
WARNING: This document covers the Impact 2022 release (12.0.2.0). If you are upgrading from any version prior, please also see the corresponding Release Notes for each release.
Licensing
Before proceeding with an upgrade, please ensure that all of your licences allow the use of Impact 2022 (v12). You can check your licences maximum support version via Help > About Impact... > General > Maximum Major Version.
If you are using software-based (Nalpeiron) licences, then the licence on each workstation may need to be activated once again. Similarly, if you are using Arden Licence Server, you will likely need to install updated licence (.LIC) files.
Licensing in Impact 2022
Broadly-speaking, Impact 2022 uses the same licensing options as Impact 2016R4 and later. Consequently, if you are upgrading from Impact 2016 R3 or earlier, you will need new licence codes in order to run Impact, so please be sure that you have obtained these from Arden Software before you upgrade.
If you are already able to run Impact 2016 R4 or later, you can skip this entire section.
Activating Your Licence Online
When starting Impact for the first time, you will be prompted to enter your licence code (which will be an 18-digit code starting with 4965).
If your computer has an internet connection, you can press the Activate button for immediate activation, after which you can continue to connect to your Impact database.
Advanced Options
If your company uses a proxy for internet access, you should press the Licensing Options button at the bottom-right corner of this form, and enter the proxy server address, the port, your user name and your password, as necessary. You also have the option to use HTTP or HTTPS for the activation.
If your company security policies stop Impact from contacting the activation server, you may need to ask your IT team to open the firewall to this location (https://my.nalpeiron.com, port 80 for HTTP or port 443 for HTTPS).
Activating Your Licence Offline
If your computer does not have an internet connection, you can press the Manual Activation button to generate a request code.
Once you have this code, you can generate a confirmation code by visiting this website (from any computer): http://www.impactcad.net/?redir=activate, or you can email this to your Impact support team and they will generate the confirmation code for you.
Paste the confirmation code into the area provided, then press OK. If the request code and the activation code match, the licence will be activated.
Licence Details
You may view the licence details using Help > About, Licence or from Options > Environment, Workstation, Licensing. If you need to, you can deactivate the licence from either of these forms.
Virtual Machines
If you wish to run Impact on a virtual machine, please note that your licence will have to be activated every time you start Impact. When you first activate the licence, there is an option to “Automatically attempt to activate this licence when Impact restarts”.
Additional Information
Unlike before, this new licensing system does not need any Windows service to be installed. Previously a service called “Nalpeiron Licensing Service” was required.
And unlike before, there is no separate activation utility (previously “ImpactActivation.exe”).
Licence Server and Impact 2022
As of Impact 2022, Impact Licence Server application has been re-named to Arden Licence Server along with its Administrative tool, Arden Licence Server Administrator.
If you decide to uninstall an existing licence server service and install the Arden Licence Server 2022, you may need/wish to re-implement/re-name Windows Firewall exceptions.
Never check for an activated workstation licence
An invalid/expired Nalpeiron licensing code can prevent Impact from stating, when the Licence Server method of product licensing is being used. It’s now possible to prevent Impact from checking for a Nalpeiron code under these conditions. A new checkbox has been added to the Workstation>Licensing>Use Licence Server options, which stops Impact from checking for a Nalpeiron code on start-up:
Operating Systems Compatibility
Impact 2022 is compatible with Windows 8.1 or later, though we recommend Windows 10 or Windows 11, which still receive mainstream support from Microsoft.
NOTE: With this upgrade, Windows Vista, 7 and 8 are no longer supported
For further details, refer to Impact 2022 system requirements.
Database Servers Compatibility
For details on supported database servers, please refer to Impact 2022 system requirements.
Database Drivers
Impact supports the following ADO drivers for SQL Server:
- Microsoft OLE DB Provider for SQL Server (SQLOLEDB)
- Microsoft OLE DB Driver for SQL Server (MSOLEDBSQL)
- SQL Server Native Client (SQLNCLI*)
NOTE: Previous Impact versions did not support MSOLEDBSQL.
NOTE: Since Impact 2019, DSN-less OBDC connections are also supported. In Impact these are referred to as ODBCDIRECT connections.
TIP: We normally recommend using ODBC or ODBCDIRECT connections because in general they are faster and require less memory.
Database Structure
When upgrading the database to Impact 2022 status, some restructuring will be required. Please be sure that you have an up-to-date backup of your database before you proceed with the upgrade.
Indexes will be added to LAYERS.L_EXTKEY, DRAWINGS.D_CREATOR and DRAWINGS.D_MODBY (to improve query performance).
To aid thumbnail preview performance, Picture-type columns D_THUMB and S_THUMB will be added to the DRAWINGS & SYMBOLS tables, respectively. Note, :
Once enabled, details of how many records have thumbnails generated, and their data storage requirements are detailed in Options > Environment > Database Installation > Thumbnail Images. However, contrary to the information detailed there, it is NOT recommended to add a LAYERS.L_THUMB column unless you’re using the WEBcnx product or otherwise intend to externally access layer thumbnails due to the overhead of them being generated during each save operation.
Post-Upgrade Considerations
One significant change to the Graphical User Interface is that the optional Auto/Apply/Refresh button have been removed from the Entity Inspector Standard Toolbox. Any changes made will be applied automatically.
Database Installation Settings
Impact 2022 introduces a several new auto-tasks. Refer to the What's New for documentation for more details. When first connecting to the database, you will be prompted to run the “Check Auto Tasks” automatic update.
New Tools
This version introduces several new tools, so users may wish to update their appearance settings to include these. Each user will be prompted to do this when they first log on.
This Impact release introduces a new tool (3DAnimateAdvanced). The following window will pop up after login and also upon the loading of an Appearance Setting:
The tool allows you to switch between Simple (one animation track for all folding faces for a single model) & Advanced (one animation track for each folding face for a single model) animation modes via a dedicated menu item:
as opposed to purely from the Animation editor context menu:
Note that the switch can also be made via a toggle button on the Animation slider:
Installing nServer or ActiveX
Please note that when installing nServer or the Impact ActiveX component on certain operating systems, namely Windows 10 and Windows Server 2016, a misleading error message may appear. The message is “Error 1904. Module …\basecad.dll failed to register. HRESULT -1073741819. Contact your support personnel.” If this happens, please press the Ignore button and the installation will continue successfully.
Compatible Products
Impact 2022 should be used only in conjunction with the following products:
- Impact Viewer 2022 (v12.x)
- Arden Licence Server 2022 (v12.x)
- nServer 2022 (v12.x)
- Impact 3DX compatible with any version up to and including v1.9
- Enterprise compatible with v11.1.x or later, recommended: v12.0.10.0 or later
- WEBcnx - compatible with any version, recommended v13.2.1.0 or later
- Lens – compatible with v1.0.0.12 or later
- Impact Plugin for Adobe Illustrator – v2.1.3.0
- TOPS – v6.8
- Manufacturing Toolbox – v2.3 or later
- Bobst PowerPack– v2.3 or later
If you use any Impact scripts or plug-ins, you should ensure that they are compatible with Impact 2022 prior to upgrading your database.
In you have WEBcnx installed, you must consult your WEBcnx support personnel to confirm compatibility before proceeding to upgrade nServer.
It is recommended that Enterprise users upgrade to Enterprise 12.x in order to take advantage of several performance enhancements, and richer master project and linked revision support.
Whilst we recommend upgrading existing Impact Licence Server services to the Impact 2022 Arden Licence server, the Impact 2022 application should run with existing Impact Licence Server services.
Third-party Library Updates
The following libraries have been updated:
3DX Module (Optional Expanded 3D Import/Export)
Various supported file format updates (Rhino - Version 7, JT- Version 10.5, NX (Unigraphics) - Version 1980, Parasolid - Version 33.1, Creo - Version 8, Inventor - Version 2022, Catia - Version V5_6R20321, Solid Edge - Version 2021 and SolidWorks - Version 2021) whilst the 3MF format (3D Manufacturing) has been added as both an Import & Export format.
Drawings (formerly Teigha Drawings from Open Design Alliance) – DXF/DWG/Collada
Import support increased to AutoCAD 2018–2021 (AC1032).
Datalogics (PDF)
Various bug fixes.
Lead Tools (Graphics)
Various bug fixes.
Assimp (3D Import/export)
Various bug fixes.
Nalpeiron (Licensing)
Improvements to handling timeouts during activation and reactivation. Better support for Virtual machines.
Additional Material
For a description of the major new features introduced with this version, please refer to What's New In Impact 2022.
The hardware requirements for Impact 2022 are largely the same as for the previous release, though support for Windows 11 has been added. Please refer to System Requirements.
A number of new COM interfaces have been introduced. See the “What's New In Impact 2022” section of the Impact COM Documentation for more information.