We are running FEFLOW on 6 identical production systems:
Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo 3.33 GHz CPU; 8 MB Ram, 64-bit OS Windows 7 Professional Service Pack 1
For all non-trivial data sets (using the standard binaries with no add-ins) FEFLOW crashes on "Close" or "Exit" from the main menu with the error message/window:
"FEFLOW Groundwater Simulation System has stopped working"
This is annoying but not too disruptive since files can be saved prior to exit.
The same error message/window also appears almost always when the "3D layer configurator" is used and the "Apply" button is clicked.
The crash is not immediate - it seems to coincide with FEFLOW attempting to display/redisplay the mesh/supermesh windows
- and there is a considerable period of CPU activity prior to the crash.
We have an addition system used for developing interface modules:
Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo 3.00 GHz CPU; 8 4MB Ram, 64-bit OS Windows XP Professional x64 Edition Version 2003 Service Pack 2
Identical files and data sets that crash in Windows 7 perform flawlessly on this system. FEFLOW is very stable and predictable in the XP 64-bit environment.
We have tried without success to resolve these issues with Windows 7 for almost a year and have reinstalled the OS and FEFLOW multiple times between running some very large simulations for clients. We can't afford the time-loss resulting from these crashes and the unpredictability of FEFLOW under Windows 7.
Our problem is:
Do we wait for the Windows 7 issues to be resolved? - have others had the same experience? - can these issues be resolved quickly?
Do we revert to XP (with no continuing OS support from Microsoft)?
Do we move to Linux? will FEFLOW be fully supported under Linux? All our systems are dual boot with Ubuntu 10.04 LTS installed (but we can use other Linux dialects).
Any help, advice, sympathy, etc will be gratefully received.
MJR