Why the Server Administration tab is not shown when launching the SolidNetWork License (SNL) Manager?

If one of your client machines serves as your server for SOLIDWORKS too, you may notice that you don’t have access to the Administration tab of the SNL Manager.

This behavior occurs when SOLIDWORKS has been installed on the SNL server, after the SNL Manager has been installed.

On the other hand, if you install the SNL Manager after installing SOLIDWORKS, you do not have access to the client SNL Manager and you cannot setup the server on your machine.

Server SNL Manager

Client SNL Manager

The reason is that SOLIDWORKS installs a client-side SNL Manager and the SNL Manager installs a server-side SNL Manager. Both versions share a common executable, and therefore a common Start Menu shortcut.

If you install SOLIDWORKS after the SNL Manager, on the SNL server, the client-side SNL Manager shortcut will overwrite the server-side shortcut. To resolve this, browse to the SNL Manager’s installation folder and create a new shortcut from its executable, “swlmwiz.exe”. The default location for the server-side SNL Manager executable is:

C:\Program Files (x86)\SolidWorks Corp\SolidNetWork License Manager\utils

But, if you have installed SNL Manager after SOLIDWORKS, you need to create a shortcut of the client side of the SNL Manager. The default location for the client-side SNL Manager executable is:

C:\Program Files\SolidWorks Corp\SOLIDWORKS\setup\i386\swlmwiz”