I'm not sure of the precise steps required, but you should be able to do all of this through design assistant.  You should be able to copy the top level assembly, and copy/rename the lower level assemblies and parts, while retaining constraints.  If I remember correctly, you need to change the project from being semi-isolated or shared to single user project, and make sure that all of the files are checked in.  There must be a tutorial out there on using the design assistant, we just played around with it untill we got it to work.

JKG

got a chance to play around with this.  the design assistant allows you to rename files you don't need to change the project file status to single user but you do need to close inventor and open the file in design assistant directly. this wasn't very intuitive and it wasn't covered in our basics training, other than that it worked ok.
thanks  

I've made reneme changes using deign assistant and now cannot open the parent assembly. It seams to have powered out my machine maxing my CPU. any help would be great.

cardj,
i noticed that the da works really well with small assemblies 50 parts or less, but when trying to open larger ones it is really a resource hogg.  It took 30 to 45 min to open what I would consider a medium sized assembly.  I have not run into the same problem you are having, sorry.

What I would like to know is how does one get around checking out the files in inventor first and then opening them in the Design Assistant?  If you don't check the files out first then th DA assigns a unavailable tag to them and one can't change anything.

Panzeer1970
I'm not sure how to get around checking unavailiabe files out other than creating a new personal project file and pointing it torwards the directory that includes those files, leave off any reference of an included file or other workspace librarys.


Now that I have accompolished copy/renaming files in da I am seeing a lot of file names not updating in my browser any Idea why? The propertys are correct and the idv's even point torward the new file but for some reason a lot of the sub assemblies are retaining the old name in the browser although when I open them the files are named correctly. Again any help would be great.

don't know why this isn't automatic.  you'll need to rename it... in the assembly, right click on the part in the browser go to Properties... the chose the Occurance tab and rename the part in the Name Block, hit apply and ok when finished

Hi all,
I have completly renamed a big project recently. It is true, replacement of components is slow and unreliable.
Better way is:
- note original/new names
- rename parts/assem files in some file manager
- open an assembly and point out new names
- keep hierarchy from down to top, from subass. to top assemblies.
There are no problems with ass. constrains,then.

in my renaming process this morning I noticed that not all subassemblies and/or parts are being seen when I choose design assistant at the top level. I tried the refresh button and even opened the assembly and to resolve it completely but still to no avail. any ideas what might be hiding particular sub assemblies and their children from da?

As long as IDWs are not involved, I've been doing it the same waay as francoI since R1.

Sean Dotson, PE
Autodesk Inventor Certified Expert
http://www.sdotson.com
Autodesk Inventor Tutorials & More