Resolution to Common File Location Errors
Resolution to Common File Location Errors
This article goes over some of the common file location errors that users see and how to fix them. While this article doesn’t cover all cases that users can run into, the process will be very similar for other file location errors that you may experience.
Custom Templates Not Showing
If your custom templates are not showing when creating a new SOLIDWORKS file, then you will have to tell SOLIDWORKS to look in the location that your custom templates are stored. Remember, it is best practice to store any custom SOLIDWORKS templates or other similar custom data outside of the SOLIDWORKS Installation Directory, so it doesn’t get overwritten during upgrades. It is common for companies to store custom templates on a network drive or PDM system so that all users at the company can use the same template. If your templates are not stored on a company network drive or PDM system, one option that we recommend is to create a new folder on your C Drive called “SOLIDWORKS CUSTOM” and create a folder in here to store your custom templates.
To point SOLIDWORKS to look in a new location for templates:
- 1. Open System Options (Gear Icon at Top Middle of Screen)
- 2. Go to “File Locations”
- 3. Ensure that “Document Templates” is displayed in the “Show folders for: ” section
- 4. Click “Add” and browse to the folder where your custom templates are stored.
- 5. Confirm the changes.
The Hole Wizard and Advanced Hole Database is not the expected version.
When launching the Hole Wizard Command, if the error “The Hole Wizard and Advance Hole database is not the expected version…” (See screenshot below) appears then you will need to either upgrade the database or relink it to the correct files.
In the error message, there are two numbers: the “Current version” and the “Expected version”. If you take these numbers and minus 3 then that will give you the SOLIDWORKS version that you are looking for (For example, if the expected version is 24.00 then this refers to SOLIDWORKS 2021). To reference the correctly versioned files, there are two options:
Option 1 – Find the files for the updated Hole Wizard/Toolbox and update SOLIDWORKS System Options to look in this new location.
- • The default location that SOLIDWORKS downloads the Hole Wizard/Toolbox options is C:\Solidworks Data. You can view what version the files are by opening the “SOLIDWORKS Data” Folder and opening the “ToolboxVersion.dat” file with Notepad.
- • If there is another user at your company who has the Hole Wizard/Toolbox setup with the correct version, you can copy the “SOLIDWORKS Data” folder over to your computer and use this.
- • After locating the correct files, you can relink where SOLIDWORKS looks for the files by going into your System Options (Gear Icon at top middle of screen) and going to “Hole Wizard/Toolbox” and change the referenced “Hole Wizard and Toolbox folder: ” to the updated location.
Option 2 – Manually upgrade the Toolbox/Hole wizard files using the instructions here: How To Upgrade SOLIDWORKS Toolbox Manually
Symbols Missing from User Interface (eg. “” instead of Diameter Symbol)
If you are working on a SOLIDWORKS part and you notice that Symbols are missing (For example, it shows the text “” instead of the Diameter symbol), then you will need to point SOLIDWORKS to look at the correct file for the Symbols Library.
- 1. Verify that the symbols file is on your machine. The default location for this is “C:\ProgramData\SolidWorks\SOLIDWORKS XXXX\lang\english” (Where XXXX is your SOLIDWORKS Version) In this folder, look for the file called “gtol.sym”. If you don’t see the file, you can see if you one of your co-workers has the file and can send it to you or if you reach out to us at MLC CAD Systems, we would be happy to track down a copy of it.
- 2. Once you verified that you have the file, point SOLIDWORKS to it by:
- 1. Open System Options (Gear Icon at Top Middle)
- 2. Go to “File Locations”
- 3. Under the “Show Folders for: “ section select “Symbol Library File”
- 4. Add the file path that the “gtol.sym” file is in.
- 5. Confirm the changes.
