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SOLIDWORKS Enterprise PDM - Manually Upgrade SOLIDWORKS Toolbox

This article will guide you through the process of manually upgrading the SOLIDWORKS Toolbox that is

managed by Enterprise PDM. This manual process of upgrading the toolbox is for SOLIDWORKS and

SOLIDWORKS Enterprise PDM 2014.

If the toolbox was not upgraded during the time of the major release upgrade for both Enterprise PDM

and SOLIDWORKS, the upgraded users will run into the following error message.

This message is essentially saying that the toolbox database file (swbrowser.mdb) is not upgraded to

the version that it needs to be (17.00).

Note that this message will appear if the upgrade was a major release upgrade of SOLIDWORKS and

Enterprise PDM but the toolbox was not upgraded. The toolbox does not need to be upgrade if you are

only upgrading to a new service pack (i.e. SOLIDWORKS 2014 SP0 to SOLIDWORKS 2014 SP3).

Tip: Here is a way to find out the versioning scheme. SOLIDWORKS 2014 has a toolbox database file of

version 17.XX. This means that the SOLIDWORKS 2015 database file will be of version 18.XX.

SOLIDWORKS 2016 will be 19.XX and so on. Same is true going backwards; toolbox database version

16.XX is for SOLIDWORKS 2013.

Important: Avoid extra work if you can. If you still have an Enterprise PDM client machine that has not

yet had SOLIDWORKS upgraded, it is recommended to follow the toolbox upgrade steps found in the

Enterprise PDM Installation Guide.


Overview The manual process of upgrading the toolbox when using Enterprise PDM consists of 3 main steps.

1) Upgrading the toolbox database.mdb file using a tool called “UpdateBrowserData.exe”

2) Upgrading the toolbox content (hardware part files) using a tool called “sldtoolboxupdater.exe”

3) Caching the upgraded toolbox database and content in client machines

It is important to have all the proper permissions to complete the steps above. It is recommended to

log into the vault as the “Admin” super user and to be local Windows system administrator in the client

machine that you will be using to complete the steps.

In this article we will be upgrading a SOLIDWORKS 2013 toolbox to 2014. Be sure to read this entire article

before starting.

It is also recommended to back up your Enterprise PDM database(s) and archives before starting.

Manually upgrading the toolbox database file

1) In a client machine that has both Enterprise PDM and SOLIDWORKS installed, navigate to the

location of where the toolbox database file is located in your vault.

For this example, we will use the following path:

C:\EPDMVault\Engineering\Library\toolbox\lang\english\ SWBrowser.mdb

2) Check out the SWBrowser.mdb.

3) Navigate to the install directory where the UpdateBrowserData.exe is located.

The default path in an upgraded version of SOLIDWORKS is this:

C:\Program Files\SOLIDWORKS Corp\SOLIDWORKS\toolbox\data utilities\UpdateBrowserData.exe

Note: If you are running multiple versions of SOLIDWORKS side by side, your newer version of

SOLIDWORKS installed will most likely be located in a “…/SOLIDWORKS (#)” folder. Be sure to

choose the correct path.


4) Right mouse click UpdateBrowserData.exe and select Run as Administrator

5) When the Update Toolbox Database window opens, Click on the button to navigate to the

location of the SWBrowser.mdb in the vault. Select the file and Click Open.

Again, for this example we are using the following path:

C:\EPDMVault\Engineering\Library\toolbox\lang\english\ SWBrowser.mdb

Important: You should see the current database version number and the update version

number. If any of those fields are blank or they are incorrect, there is a problem. Click Cancel

and repeat steps 1-5. If the problem persists, stop and contact GoEngineer support.


6) The example image above shows that the current toolbox database is 16.02 which is a

SOLIDWORKS 2013 version. The Update Version is 17.00 which is a SOLIDWORKS 2014 version.

Since everything looks correct, we will click the Update button.

7) Once the upgrade of the database is complete, a text file is created. This text file will show if

there were any errors. Open the text file to check if everything completed successfully.

8) In the text file look for “Finished update database…” If you find errors, stop and contact

GoEngineer support.


9) If the upgrade was successful, check-in the SWBrowser.mdb. If the upgrade was not successful,

Undo checkout on the SWBrowser.mdb (this will take you back to step 1).

10) With the successful upgrade of the SWBrowser.mdb, SOLIDWORKS can now use the toolbox

without the error described at the begging in of this article. Note that at this point, this is only

true in this computer you used to do the upgrade.

Upgrading toolbox content In order upgrade the toolbox content (hardware part files), you must first ensure that your

SOLIDWORKS is pointed to the toolbox in the vault. You must also have your SOLIDWORKS installation

CD/files handy. In this example we will use the installation CD, however, same steps apply for the

downloaded installation files. You must verify that your installation files root folder contains a

“toolbox” subfolder. In this toolbox subfolder you should see .zip files containing the standard

hardware files. We will come back to this folder shortly.


Follow these steps to ensure that your SOLIDWORKS is pointed to the toolbox in the vault.

1) Open SOLIDWORKS

2) Navigate to Tools > Options > Hole Wizard/Toolbox.

3) Click the button if you need to correct the hole wizard and toolbox folder location.

4) Ensure the check box for “Make this folder the default…“is checked.

5) Click OK when finished.

6) Close SOLIDWORKS.

The tool to upgrade the toolbox content is also located in the latest SOLIDWORKS install directory. The

tool is called sldtoolboxupdater.exe. We will use this executable to upgrade all of the toolbox part files

in the vault.

1) While logged in to Enterprise PDM as a user with sufficient permissions or as the Admin super

user, check out the entire toolbox content in the toolbox folder. If you find that someone has a

file checked out, contact the user to check it in or forcibly undo check out with the Admin user.

It is very important that all files are only checked out by you.

2) Navigate to the install directory where the sldtoolboxupdater.exe is located.

The default path in an upgraded version of SOLIDWORKS is this:

C:\Program Files\SOLIDWORKS Corp\SOLIDWORKS\toolbox\toolboxconfigure\sldtoolboxupdater.exe

Note: If you are running multiple versions of SOLIDWORKS side by side, your newer version of

SOLIDWORKS installed will most likely be located in a “…/SOLIDWORKS (#)” folder. Be sure to

choose the correct path.


3) Right mouse click sldtoolboxupdater.exe and select Run as Administrator.

4) When the application opens, check the box for “Show completed updates”.

5) Click on “SOLIDWORKS/Toolbox installation media location…” Browse to the location of the

installation files root folder. This root folder should contain the “toolbox” subfolder. As

mentioned before, this example will use the installation CD. The installation files root folder is

therefore the E: drive and it contains the toolbox subfolder.

6) Click Process.

7) Upon clicking on “Process” the tool will analyze your toolbox then start the upgrade process.

This may take a while to complete.


8) Upgraded files will be checked in by the upgrade tool automatically.

9) If the upgrade fails, SOLIDWORKS Knowledge Base article S-056686 can help. Below is an

excerpt from the article:

“NOTE: In cases where the upgrade process fails, delete the "ToolboxFiles.index" file from SOLIDWORKS Data > Browser (see S-057028 for more information on this file) and the "updates" folder and re-run the Toolbox upgrade.”

Depending on vault setup, you may need to “destroy” the files stated in the excerpt above

instead of deleting. Always make a backup of the files before deleting or destroying them.

10) If the file update keeps failing, contact GoEngineer Support to help find where the problem is. If

the update is completed successfully, proceed to next section.

Check in and get latest version You are almost done. These next steps are simple.

1) After the toolbox part files are updated, test the toolbox by creating an assembly in

SOLIDWORKS and dropping in hardware files from toolbox browser.

2) The sldtoolboxupdater.exe tool should have checked in files already but it is still a good idea to

right click on the toolbox root folder and select check in.

3) Finally, instruct users to “get latest version” on the toolbox root folder.

Congratulations! You have now manually upgraded your toolbox in Enterprise PDM.

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