Hi! we recently moved our SolidWorks drawings (many hundreds!) from \\server\drawings\... to Z:\drawings\... hence all our references in the assemblies still point to \\server\drawings\... is there a way to easily replace all occurances of '\\server\drawings\' to 'z:\drawings\' in our drawings/assemblies ALL AT ONCE??? as there are so many drawings involved (with assemblies containing assemblies containing assemblies...), it's real annoyance to do this all by hand whenever you open a drawing for the first time after it was moved to it's new location... i couldn't find a tool to assist me in this process nor did a text-editor's 'Find/Replace in Files...' do the job (well, files are not in ASCII, but i thought i might try it anyway...) TIA, Hannes
What you are trying might have worked in early versions of Pro/E when they had text based document files. But it will just get you into trouble with SW. Trying to update the path in the file with an editor is a sure way to have more problems. Look under Searching for Referenced Files in help. One possible solution is to set the References location to the new directory location. There may be other implications to doing this. One implicatation is that all your files must have unique names. It would have been better to move the files with SolidWorks in the first place. Either SolidWorks or SolidWorks Explorer would have helped you update the references as they moved the files. BTW is the UNC path still valid?
Trying to update the path in the file with an editor is a sure way to have agreed - it was just a try i did that... the problem is (at least i think it is), that our directory structure is as follows: (%SW_PATH% was \\server\drawings\ and is now Z:\drawings\) --- %SW_PATH%\devices\A01\device01xxx.SLDASM %SW_PATH%\devices\A03\device03yyy.SLDASM with most referenced objects in folders like: %SW_PATH%\mechanics\M04\mech04aaa.SLDASM %SW_PATH%\mechanics\M09\mech09bbb.SLDDRW %SW_PATH%\mechanics\M32\mech32bbb.SLDASM or %SW_PATH%\electronics\E14\elec14hhh.SLDASM %SW_PATH%\mechanics\M22\elec22kkk.SLDDRW etc. if i set the 'References location' to i.e. Z:\drawings\ it appears SolidWorks DOES NOT search subdirectories (( (but there are too many to add them all to the list of 'Referenced locations') maybe - but there's stil the problem of moving hundreds of assemblies manually not currently - but it would be possible to make it temporarily valid again
I'm just wondering... You moved your Drawings, and your assemblies point no - i moved EVERYTHING!!! (see my previous reply to 'P.') i just moved everything (the whole directory structure) from a network server (\\sever\drawings\) to the local PC (Z:\drawings\) (intermediate solution for some month) please see previous reply to 'P.'... unfortunately: NO! again, please see previous reply to 'P.' ...
i'll have the same problem at offcice in 2 months. i'll install a new server for cad and move the directory. what's the rigth way to do it ? +++
So long as the top-most directory and all sub-directoriues are moved there should be no problem. We just use Windows Explorer. Example - All the drawings (SW files of all types, not just drawings) are in CompanyServer1\Drawings and sub-directories of Drawings such as CompanyServer1\Drawings\ProductLine1 and CompanyServer1\Drawings\ProductLine2. To move to CompanyServer2\Engineering simply cut (Back up on tape or cd first!!!) CompanyServer1\Drawings (all its subdirectories should come along) and paste under CompanyServer2\Engineering to end up with CompanyServer2\Engineering\Drawings\ProductLine1 and CompanyServer2\Engineering\Drawings\ProductLine2 etc. We have done this several times with no issues - AS LONG AS THE DIRECTORY STRUCTURE IS THE SAME. Again, to keep the directory structure the same I suggest cutting and pasting. Brian
