SolidWorks Installation Common Issues & Troubleshooting

Open the SolidWorksSetup.exe file from the initial SolidWorks download.
– You can download this from software.calpoly.edu if you can’t find it). Unzip when prompted.
– If the error window opens with the message “A Windows reboot is pending from a previous installation…”, just press OK

Select Modify your installation and click Next.

Make sure the correct serial number is shown. It should end in 7RCH.
– The entire serial number can be found on software.calpoly.edu.

Continue through the rest of the Installation Manager, nothing else should change. Click Modify Now on the final page.
– An error message should appear with a specific file path, something like C:\Users\user\Documents.

Open

Navigate to the file path in File Explorer and open the SOLIDWORKS 202X SPXX folder.

Open

Right-click on swdata99.id and rename it to swdata99.txt.
– Under the View tab in File Explorer, you may need to check File name extensions before you can do this.

Open swdata99.txt and change the text so that it reads SOLIDWORKS 202X SPXX.XX.

(The above screenshot is for example. The actual version number may vary.)

Save the file (File > Save), close it, and rename the swdata99.txt file back to swdata99.id

Go back to the installation manager and click Modify Now again.
– You may have to restart the Installation Manager for it to go through (redo steps 1 through 5).

Open SolidWorks. It should now be activated.