Many things come with fall; leaves changing color, cooler temperatures, warm drinks… and a new release SOLIDWORKS! This means it’s officially update season, and there are a few things you should check to make sure it’s a smooth, easy process. We broke this down into four main sections, Copy Settings Wizard, Custom File Location, Hardware Specs and Installation Type.

Copy Setting Wizard

Before updating SOLIDWORKS, it’s important that you capture your current user settings. These are things such as your toolbox menus, keyboard shortcuts and custom file locations for templates. Essentially things that you’re going to want to make the software “yours” once again. If you fail to capture these settings before upgrading, everything will revert back to the default settings. By utilizing the Copy Settings Wizard you can capture the current user settings and then reapply them once SOLIDWORKS is updated.

Custom File Location

If you’re going to be using custom templates for drawings, parts or assemblies, it’s important that you create a separate file location for these templates in SOLIDWORKS file locations in the options dialog. This is necessary because during the update process it wipes the default directory and any custom information is then removed. By saving your custom templates in a unique location and running a Copy Settings Wizard these locations are restored once it’s updated.

Confirm Hardware System Specs

As SOLIDWORKS grows and becomes more robust, the physical requirements placed on your Workstation also grow. It’s important to make sure that your Workstation meets the hardware needs. You don’t want to be installing it to find out that it can’t run SOLIDWORKS!

System Requirements for SW and SWPDM can be found here.

Installation Type 

During the installation process, you will get an option asking if you wish to upgrade an existing install or not. This gives you the opportunity to have multiple versions of SOLIDWORKS to be installed on your computer, even with a network license. If you choose to do this, it’s recommended to create a new install folder for the new version (C:Program FilesSolidWorks 2015) AND a new SOLIDWORKS Data folder (C:SolidWorks Data 2015) for Toolbox. If you don’t specify a new Toolbox folder, the older version will be updated to the new version and you will run into issues with the Toolbox when you are using the older version.

If you have a network license, the SNL Manager on the server will need to be upgraded to the latest version first. A 2019 SNL Manager will still serve licenses of older versions (i.e. 2018, 2017, etc.).

If you have any additional questions, please be sure to reach out to our Tech Support Team at 888.874.6324 or at [email protected].

Want more information on SOLIDWORKS 2019? Check out our recap of the live streaming event and get all the details you need!