Do I have to measure every holes. How to make sure it is accurate?

Not going to be popular, but then again I’m not running for any popularity contest. So many of the questions here are about the most BASIC of SW functionality that they would have been covered in the first hour of any training (formal or informal). Please… if you haven’t even attempted to take any of the voluminous training out there (much being free), please do so first - prior to seeking the easy answers here in this forum for actual SW users. Otherwise, you are not doing yourself or anyone here any service in the long run.

Click to open one file, and a completely different one opens

Need to manually refresh windows to see files update

Has an option to Get Latest instead of Checking Out, when you don't want to make changes, but then accuses you of trying to make changes without checking out

Coworker's copy would crash when using a certain tool and support said RTX 3070 is too outdated to expect smooth performance

--

What are your favorite examples of this total joke piece of garbage software?

How does anyone even use solid-works? I just had it delete three hours of work on me twice today. I save every 5-10 minutes, but does it give a shit? Nope, assembly randomly crashes for no apparent reason so i think “oh well ill just redo what I worked on the last five minutes”; only to open my assembly to an insane amount of mate and sketch errors because it reverted changes id made on three separate parts through about 15 manual saves i’d made throughout. So i spend another three hours making those changes again, hit pack and go to merge it all into a single clean folder only for the exact same thing to happen again (minus the crash), but reverted to, in some cases, file states from yesterday? Like the file icon is still my updated part but I open it up to a practically blank slab with no features (none rolled back or anything, just gone). Weird thing is the slab is the one part that DIDN’T get packed into the new pack and go folder. I’m sure it’s related but what am I even supposed to do to prevent this? Literally just saving will cause mass deletion of effort, let alone any random crash deciding to revert everything through the saves that don’t do it themselves...

I'm a robotics student who uses CAD heavily. I leverage LLM's on a day to day for help improve my skills in programming etc.

I've recently seen some Instagram reels about AI generated CAD but its honestly laughable how bad they turn out. While right now I feel like AI for CAD might not be there yet, and I would hate for my years of manual hard work to be replaced -- I can't shake the feeling that within the next 2-3 years we will see AI actually becoming a viable tool/solution for 3D CAD, similar to what we saw with programming.

Since I'm still a student I don't want to fall behind - I would love to hear anyone's prespective on this, or any cool tools / AI applications in CAD that you guys know about

cheers

Professional mech. eng. here, I just need to release my rage using SW:

- 3D threads as default threading option? WTF?? Do you want the CNC guy to kill me?

- Cosmetic thread is a hell to set up... Listen Mr. Solidworks, I have 300 holes/threads in this assembly, I need to have a cosmetic feature on threads so I can easily see if I made a hole or a thread, is this that difficult to understand? Why isnt this a default feature?

Inventor, solidedge, siemens NX... All of them properly deal with "cosmetic threads" as the basic and default way of creating threads but this SW... what a nightmare...

What are your thoughts on this?

I had Claude write its own MCP connector to my SolidWorks installation on my computer. I regularly use it to create parts I'm using off Amazon or other sites without a CAD file.

Works great.

Missed cancelling my renewal date due to unforeseen circumstances and have been stung for a whole year since apparently they won’t refund you if you message them within minutes of charges hitting your account (even though the renewal date is 6 days away) under any circumstances. Most companies choose to be understanding, not Solidworks. Thanks Solidworks 👍 really showing your true colors here. Thought I’d point out your own website says you have 5 days

I am using SW 2020 and one of my coworkers asked me this question. Can you guys tell me the steps to remove these boarders ?

Got into CAD pretty much backwards compared to how it’s usually taught.

Didn’t start with software or classes. Started with fixing random stuff and realizing guessing dimensions is a great way to waste time and material. At some point it clicked that if I could model it first, I could control the outcome instead of fighting it in real life.

Messing with game level design earlier on probably helped. Thinking in space, breaking things into shapes, that translated over without me really trying.

Went through automotive school, but that’s where the shift happened. Instead of just repairing things, I kept asking why parts were designed the way they were and how I’d change them. That’s where CAD stuck. It stopped being “learn the program” and turned into “solve the problem before it exists.”

Early on it was zero budget, so the entry point wasn’t exactly textbook. That eventually caught up with the shops I worked with later on. I warned more than once that if they didn’t actually invest in proper licensing, it would become a problem. It did.

Once real money and real output were on the line, that flipped fast. If the software is making you money, it stops being optional and starts being part of the cost of doing things right.

Most of the real learning came from reverse engineering:
measure something → model it → realize it’s wrong → fix it → make it → repeat until it stops fighting you

No clean path, no certifications. Just needing parts to exist and not wanting to remake them three times.

Curious how others got into it. Did you start from school/software first, or from needing to solve real-world problems?

I’m sure this is a common question but the answers I’m finding are pretty dated.

I’m a product design student that is going to have to use SOLIDWORKS for CAD this coming semester. I have an M4 pro chip MacBook Pro. I was curious if it is possible to get SOLIDWORKS to run on this machine or if I’m better off spending my time in the computer lab or alternatively buying a secondary windows machine.

How might I go about running it on Mac.

Thank you.

I need to cut holes into the circled area but Solid Works won’t let make sketchs on that area (it’s an extruded boss btw) to make extruded cuts. How do I make holes here?

Honestly, I think this is a pretty cool way to hear directly from the SOLIDWORKS community.

On September 24, Manish Kumar, SOLIDWORKS CEO and R&D VP, will be joining Reddit for a live Q&A — no presentation, no livestream, just questions and answers directly in the subreddit.

I’m really curious to see what the community asks, especially the questions that usually don’t make it into the usual conversations.

If you use SOLIDWORKS, this is definitely one to check out.

📅 September 24, 2026
⏰ 12 PM–1 PM ET

🔗 https://solidworks.com/reddit-ama-sep-2026

#solidworkschampions

I cannot for the life of me determine why this is still underdefined. Thanks for the help!

Do NOT miss this incredible opportunity to ask SOLIDWORKS CEO and R&D VP, Manish KUMAR whatever is on your mind in his very 1st Reddit AMA.

ALL QUESTIONS ARE WELCOME.

Be sure to post your questions to Manish in the Official AMA post and tune in all for the AMA:

🗓️ Today! (September 24th, 2026)

⏱️ 12pm to 1pm Eastern/9AM Pacific/5PM BST/6PM CEST

Reddit AMA with SOLIDWORKS CEO Manish Kumar

Video Announcement

I need a laptop as a uni student doing mech.eng., Im not a computer guy so I dont know whether this is enough or way below the specs I need, if not anything around £700 will do.