What causes the error: ‘Cannot initiate license for SOLIDWORKS Electrical. Error = 3’?

Sometimes while launching SOLIDWORKS Electrical schematic software you will see an error:  ‘Cannot initiate license for SOLIDWORKS Electrical. Error = 3’.

This message means that the file ‘swsecwrap.dll’ could not load properly. Various reasons can cause this issue. One possibility is that the root certification of the *.dll file is out of date.

To update the root certificates manually, follow these steps:

STEP 1:

Download the file ‘rootsupd.exe’ from the attachment and save the file to the <C:\temp> folder on your computer. If the <C:\temp> folder does not exist, create the folder.

Download and save the rootsupd.exe file

STEP 2:

Open a Windows command prompt and run as an administrator.

STEP 3:

At the command prompt, type the following command and press Enter. This command extracts the ‘rootsupd.exe’ file and creates a new folder with the name ‘extroot’ in which to store the extracted files.

<C:\temp\rootsupd.exe /c /t:C:\temp\extroot>

STEP 4:

At the command prompt, type in:

<cd C:\temp\extroot>

And press Enter.

Command prompt

STEP 5:

At the command prompt, type the following commands (one at a time) and press Enter:

<updroots.exe authroots.sst>
<updroots.exe updroots.sst>
<updroots.exe -l roots.sst>
<updroots.exe -d delroots.sst>

These commands update the certificates, which resolves the issue.