I was informed by my VAR today that SolidWorks will be switching to a “full backdating” format 1/1/16.

Customers will be required to pay the full term of the lapsed subscriptions - up to the cost of a new License purchase.

Because this is a new change they are imposing a 90 day grace period for the reinstallation fee that only runs to the end of the year.

Any subscription service that has lapsed and is renewed within 90 days of the lapse, will be reduced to a $100 reinstallation fee per seat instead of $500.

More than 90 days since the lapse will still be the $500 per seat fee.

After January 1, 2016 the grace period is over and the fee will be 1/12th of the full subscription cost - per month - per seat - since the lapse - up to the cost of a new License purchase.

this was a big surprise to me and I am sure it will be to many others.

This was one of the prime reasons we switched from Inventor!

No more skipping a year or two to save money, you will have to pay for it all to renew.

Has anyone else heard of this?

How long ago was this known.

Thank you DSS for the short time to prepare or make decisions!

We had one of our subscriptions end today and the others have already expired and the boss didn't want to pay more until we got better at using it.

Now what do we do???

Looks like we will be Stuck with 2015 sp1.1 for a long time on the systems that the sub ended at the beginning of the year.

As a reminder of the grace period: This no longer pertains as of 1/1/16

If your subscription has lapsed within the last 90 days or will lapse before the end of the year, and you renew before the end of the year and it is within 90 days from that lapse date, you qualify.

If you qualify, be sure you discuss this with your VAR so you get the reduced reinstallation fee.

This means that (as of today (Nov. 30)  if your subscription expired after Sep. 1, 2015 then you qualify (if your expiration was on Sep. 1 you need to renew today to qualify).

EDIT 12/28/17:

Bumped to bring this back to attention of those who don't know and are considering if they will renew subscriptions this year - as December is probably the time when the most seats become ready for renewal.