SolidWorks question: why does opening a part cause others to open too?

Have you ever opened a particular SolidWorks file that caused other SolidWorks files to automatically open as well? This can be very frustrating if you want to open a signal part, but then 5 other parts load with it.  Most people who encounter this behavior figure out that there are external references that link the files together.

Over the years, I’ve seen people give several types of responses for this behavior in SolidWorks. Some people simply live with the undesired behavior. Others may say, “the file is corrupt,” or “there’s a bug in SolidWorks.” Some people spend hours trying to resolve the cause of the behavior without success (me being one of them, many, many, many years ago).

The answer?

SolidWorks is doing what it is supposed to do when you open one file, and then other external referenced files open automatically with it!  This is intended behavior.  It is also behavior that you can control at the system level.

There is a setting in System Options that allows you to tell SolidWorks how to handle external referenced files.  It’s at Tools pulldown>Options…>System Options tab>External References.  At that screen, the fourth line from the top says, “Load referenced documents:” followed by a drop-down field with the following choices:

• Prompt – ask the user before opening referenced files
• All – open all referenced files every time
• None – never open referenced files
• Changed Only – only open referenced files if there is a change

As far as I have seen, Changed Only appears to be the SolidWorks default choice for this setting.  To tell SolidWorks not to open external referenced files, change this setting to None. Save the setting by clicking OK button.

That’s it!  I know, this seems like such a simple solution for something that may have been particularly frustrating.

Author: fcsuper

As a drafter, mechanical designer and CAD engineer, I've been in the mechanical design field since 1991. For the first 8 years of my career, I was an AutoCAD professional. I utilized AutoLISP and many other AutoCAD customization features to streamline drafting activities for 6+ drafters and designers. I authored several custom functions, one of which was published in the March 1997 issue of Cadalyst Magazine. Since 1998, I've been used SolidWorks non-stop. I've worked to utilize the SolidWorks' user environment to simplify drafting and design activities for 20+ engineers. I've created this website to provide current information about SolidWorks from a variety of contributors. More recently, I am now employed by Dassault Systemes as SOLIDWORKS Sr. Product Definition Manager to improve drawing, annotation and MBD related areas. View all posts by fcsuper