Changing the SOLIDWORKS “Open External Referenced Documents” dialog behavior

External Referenced Documents Open Options

Every now and then, one of our fantastic support staff here at Javelin, run across a dialog that they have never seen before…. it’s a rare case to be sure.

Especially rare if the features involved have been around forever and the dialog box itself has been available since the 2013 release of SOLIDWORKS.  That is exactly what I managed to find late last month when working with one of our clients. Enter stage Right the “Open External Referenced Documents” Dialog.

Some users may find this feature handy as it makes the user aware directly that there are referenced models that will not update unless their referenced files are opened and loaded into RAM.  If one wanted to resume prior behavior of SOLIDWORKS that did not display this dialog, we’d have a few options to do so.

The first would be to adjust the “Load referenced documents:” option found under Tools > Options > System Options > External References > “Load referenced documents:”  This can be migrated away from the “Prompt” option which will cease to display the dialog when loading a file containing outside references.

System Options – External References

Naturally one can also ignore the dialog completely and use the “Don’t display this dialog box again” option that will dismiss the dialog permanently until it is re-enabled within the “Dismissed Messages” section of the System Options.

Dismiss reference/update dialog

The moral of the story here is, If there is behavior in SOLIDWORKS you do not like, in many cases you have multiple options available to change that undesired behavior.