This is essential reading if you are planning to upgrade your Impact workstations (and database) to Impact 2023 (v13.x). Please ensure you have read and understood all the aspects described before you proceed. If you are unsure of anything covered here, please contact your support representatives.
WARNING: This document covers the Impact CAD 2023 release (13.0.3.x). However, if you are upgrading across several Impact releases, please review each of their release notes in turn.
Licensing
Before proceeding with an upgrade, please ensure that all of your licences allow the use of Impact 2023 (v13.x). 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 2023
Impact CAD 2023 utilises the same licensing mechanism as Impact 2016 R4 (10.3.1.0) and later. Consequently, if you are upgrading from an earlier version, you will need new licence codes in order to run Impact, so please be sure that you have obtained these before you upgrade.
Note. For security purposes, there has been a change to the Offline / Manual activation process in Impact 2023 and later. Please refer to this updated article Activating and Deactivating Your Nalpeiron Licence Manually (Offline).
Operating Systems Compatibility
Impact 2023 is compatible with Windows 8.1 and later, though we recommend Windows 10 or Windows 11, which still receive mainstream support from Microsoft.
For further details, refer to the complete Impact 2023 system requirements documentation.
Database Servers Compatibility
For details on supported database servers, please refer to Impact 2023 system requirements.
Database Drivers
Impact supports the following ADO drivers for SQL Server, listed in order of preference/best performing:
- Microsoft OLE DB Driver for SQL Server (MSOLEDBSQL) - Recommended
- Microsoft OLE DB Provider for SQL Server (SQLOLEDB)
- SQL Server Native Client (SNAC or SQLNCLI)*
* SQL Server Native Client (SNAC or SQLNCLI) is now considered a legacy driver, while Microsoft OLE DB Driver for SQL Server (MSOLEDBSQL) is considered to offer superior performance as well as active development and ongoing OS support.
We also recommend using ODBC or ODBCDIRECT connections for Impact nServer because in general they are faster and require less memory when used at scale.
Database Structure
There are no database structure / schema changes required for this release of Impact, however, if you are upgrading across several Impact releases, please review each of their release notes in turn.
A full database backup should still be taken ahead of any Impact upgrade, to provide a convenient restore point, should anything go wrong.
Post-Upgrade Upgrade Considerations
Where possible, each release of Impact is intended to limit any breaking changes or drastic change in behaviour. In some cases, it may be unavoidable, or we may have corrected a previous issue that a workaround may have been put in place for.
Here, we detail potential breaking changes and improvements you may wish to implement. Please also review the supporting What's New In Impact 2023 documentation to be able to review and take advantage of new features that may require further configuration.
Separate Value Mappings trigger controls for Impact and nServer
Impact now features additional controls, Enable for Impact / nServer, that allow each Value Mapping Master Tool Settings to be configured to run in Impact and/or nServer contexts individually.
Importantly, on upgrade, all existing (and newly created) Value Mapping Master Tool Settings will have both options enabled. Therefore, for those utilising nServer, you should review how this may affect your usage since previously not all Value Mapping triggers were implemented.
Deprecation of Impact JViewer 'TrueType fonts as filled areas' export option
The previously available TrueType fonts as filled areas export option has been removed from the Impact JViewer Export settings, and this behaviour is now enabled by default, with no control.
No configuration change is required.
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.
The following 'New Impact Tools' are introduced in version 2023, and all relate to the new Dynamic Constraints feature. The details of the newly available Dynamic Constraint tools is described here.
New User Privileges
The following new User Privileges have been introduced in this Impact version, and are worthy of consideration:
- 'Constraint Tools' - This option is enabled by default and gives access to all of the Dynamic Constraint tools.
The Dynamic Constraints (aka "Constraint Tools" or "Constraint Manager") features are also licence controlled, but are included in all Draw and Edit enabled licence types. Contact your reseller for additional information should you not have access to this feature on upgrade.
Compatible Products
Impact 2023 (v13.x) should be used only in conjunction with the following Arden products:
- Impact Viewer 2023 (v13.x)
- Arden Licence Server 2023 (v13.x)
- nServer 2023 (v13.x)
- Impact 3DX compatible with any version up to and including v1.10 or later
- Enterprise compatible with v11.1.x or later, recommended: v12.0.10.0 or later
- WEBcnx - compatible with any version, recommended v24.1 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 – v3.0 or later
- Bobst PowerPack – v3.0 or later
If you use any Impact scripts or plug-ins, you should ensure that they are compatible with this Impact release prior to upgrading.
In you have WEBcnx or nService installed, it is advisable to consult your distributor to confirm compatibility before proceeding to upgrade nServer.
Third-party Library Updates
The following libraries have been updated:
3DX Module (Optional Expanded 3D Import/Export)
The updated release of the Impact 2023 compatible 3DX Library v1.10 is based upon Techsoft's Hoops library v2022 SP1 U1.
Changes since our last library update (2021 SP2 U2).
- Catia V5_6R2022
- JT 10.6
- Revit 2022
- Navisworks (beta) 2012 to 2022
- NX 2007 (2021 Dev.)
- SolidWorks 2022
- Solid Edge 2022
- Parasolid 34
Refer to the following article for full details of the 3D Import/Export file format verions 3DX v1.10 offers: Which file format versions does 3DX v1.10 support?
Nalpeiron (Licensing)
Impact 2023 (13.0.3.0) utilises Nalpeiron licensing library version 4.0.0.29.
Changes since our last library update (3.8.24.4).
Release 4.0.0.29
- Bugfix: Fixed intermittent hang in Windows library at initialization when VM detection was enabled.
- Bugfix: Fixed library segfault on certain server returns to the library. This includes certain error returns from the Nalpeiron server but also some similar responses from non-Nalpeiron sources.
- Bugfix: Fixed library information gathering on btrfs and btrfs/lvm filesystems.
- Update: Increased security for offline license activations.
- Update: Improved internal logging speed and updated the default log queue length.
- Update: Improved error reporting in logging for Windows.
- Update: Java libraries had two errors associated with the error code -9006: JNI memory error and also invalid character conversion. These are now -9024 and -9006 respectively.
Release 3.10.0.5
- Bugfix: Fixed daemon GUI so that, when canceling product information entry, the cancelled values don't appear in the display.
- Update: Fixed NSLConsumeToken documentation to specify that tokens may be returned to the server.
- Bugfix: Fixed missing Java symbols in Apple libs.
- Update: Reduced the daemon's logging of errors to httpd's error_log.
- Update: Better handling by the Library of server error returns and returns from intervening servers (i.e. firewalls, proxies, etc.)
- Update: Increased ability of library to collect necessary information in a Windows platform. WMIC deprecated.
Release 3.9.0.3
- Update: Updated all open source libraries: apr-1.7.4, apr-util-1.6.3, curl-8.1.2, libressl-3.7.3, libxml2-2.11.4. For a complete list see here.
- Bugfix: Fix for condition giving rise to anomalous database error and consumption of additional license seat.
- Bugfix: Fixed small (few bytes) memory leak in library system ID routines.
Release 3.8.44.9
- Update: MACOS library now includes Java. Previously, it was necessary to use the x86_64 MACOS library under Rosetta 2. This is no longer the case.
- Bugfix: Fixed the possibility of deadlocks in NSLSetCredentialsSSO in library version 3.8.24.
- Bugfix: Fixed several small bugs relating to NSLSetCredentialsSSO in library version 3.8.24.
- Update: NSLSetCredentialsSSO now allows the override of the claim containing the username.
- Bugfix: Fixed undefined symbol 'wslgethdsn' in the passive library.
- Documentation: The client API documentation contained some internal functions which appeared as though they were user callable. These functions have been removed from the documentation.
Drawings (formerly Teigha Drawings from Open Design Alliance) – DXF/DWG/Collada
No upgrade in this release.
Datalogics (PDF)
No upgrade in this release.
Lead Tools (Graphics)
No upgrade in this release.
Assimp (3D Import/export)
No upgrade in this release.
Additional Material
For a description of the major new features introduced with this version, please refer to What's New In Impact 2023.
The hardware requirements for this Impact release are largely the same as for the previous release. Please refer to Impact 2023 system requirements.
A number of new COM interfaces have been introduced. See the “What's New In Impact 2023” section of the Impact COM Documentation for more information.