foxsquirrel I am to sorry to hear of your troubles. I have not had master cam give me the death screen. , but I know that how the testing is being held for X5 is really being done different due to some release of the past.
As for the converters I don't know of any software's that update the converters for older versions of the software as there are new release. Did you contact CNC about the post issues. I know for the controls you spoke of there are good posts out there as I have some from older versions of MC from the years of supporting it and programming.
As for solidworks it is good Cad software but I have seen it crash to over the years.
So far my SW10 sp2.1.
Do you run XP or Vista or Win7 also 64 or 32 bit?
(Note: The opinions expressed in this post are my own and are not necessarily those of CNCzone and its management)
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