Updating the SOLIDWORKS Toolbox

This article applies to upgrading toolboxes for SOLIDWORKS versions 2015 and later only.
Please reference this article if you are updating a pre-2015 toolbox to 2015 or later.
On the rare chance you are updating older versions to older versions (2014 and earlier), we have a guide for that as well.

If you ever open a part or an assembly and receive this message, your version of SOLIDWORKS is pointed to an outdated toolbox and it needs to be updated.

First, find out the location of your current toolbox. Open up SOLIDWORKS and go to Tools > Options > System Options > Hole Wizard/Toolbox. In this location, you will find the path SOLIDWORKS is using for your Toolbox. If you typically use the default Toolbox, there is a chance that when you installed, there is duplicate naming and Windows created a new folder "SOLIDWORKS Data (#)". Check the location shown and you may be able to point your SOLIDWORKS Settings to the correct toolbox. For this reason, we recommend naming your toolbox based on the year.

If you utilize a custom toolbox, you want to preserve your part numbers and custom settings, so you will need to upgrade your toolbox. Here are the steps:

1) Back up your toolbox. Make a copy of it in case you need ever need to access older files. You can archive it or move it to a different location, but we always recommend creating a back up

2) Make sure you and all users that may be accessing the toolbox have exited SOLIDWORKS

**If you are using PDM, check out the entire SOLIDWORKS Data folder as the Admin

3) Locate the UpdateBrowserDatabase.exe. This will be located in the Toolbox\data utilities folder of your Installation files. By default, this should be C:\Program Files\SOLIDWORKS Corp\SOLIDWORKS\Toolbox\data utilities

Right click on this and select "Run as Administrator"

4) Next to the Database To Update, this location should be pointing to the "swbrowser.sldedb" located in the lang\english folder of your Toolbox. If it is not, hit the "..." radio button next to the location and navigate there. By default this is located here: C:\SOLIDWORKS Data\lang\english

The Updating Database should be pointed at updatedb.sldedb in the same folder the UpdateBrowserDatabase.exe was located. This should already be filled in.

The window should also show the database version and the update version. The versions are not in line with the year, but are as follows:

2017 = 20   :   2018 = 21   :   2019 = 22

The decimal value represents the service pack (21.10 = SOLIDWORKS 2018 SP 1)

If everything looks correct, hit the update command. This should run through and show a progress bar.

5) The database is now upgraded and you should no longer receive the error message. The next step is to update the toolbox data files. To do this, you need the source installation files, so the DVD or the Downloaded file set for the version that the toolbox is being updated to. (The toolbox will work without this step, but you will be referencing older version files)

Run the sldtoolboxupdater.exe as an administrator, which can be found at C:\Program Files\SOLIDWORKS Corp\SOLIDWORKS

Click "SOLIDWORKS/Toolbox installation media location", navigate to your downloaded installation files, and select that folder.  Click Process.

Assuming no errors, you are now complete. An alternative method to this would be to run a repair on your SOLIDWORKS installation if this fails, as the files will be update with a repair as well.

6) The update is now complete. Open SOLIDWORKS and test functionality.

**If you are using PDM, you can now check in the SOLIDWORKS Data folder. Have end users perform a get latest on the swbrowser.sldedb file.

For further technical support, please contact Hawk Ridge Systems at 877.266.4469 for the U.S. or 866.587.6803 for Canada and support@hawkridgesys.com.