by Deepika PUJARI
Understanding the intricacies of installation log files can be pivotal in troubleshooting any difficulties encountered during the setup of SOLIDWORKS®. These logs are not just random assortments of data; they are a structured record detailing every step of your installation process.
SOLIDWORKS® Installation Manager log files are available to assist you in troubleshooting installation problems.
These log files are located in this folder:
C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\SOLIDWORKS\Installation Logs\installed_version
If you run the Installation Manager from a system account, the logs are located in this folder:
C:\Windows\SysWOW64\config\systemprofile\AppData\Roaming\SOLIDWORKS
In case of Administrative Image Installations: If you enable the Administrative Options “Create a diagnostic log during each installation”, the SOLIDWORKS Installation Manager requires that all clients have write access to the Logs directory that is created as part of the administrative image, which is “[Administrative image directory]\x64\Logs”. Client installations will fail if the client is unable to write to this location.
If you see the message: “You must set write permission to the logs directory or client installations will fail,” click OK and modify the permissions to the newly created logs directory, where needed, before performing a client installation.
Files created in the [Administrative image directory]\x64\Logs\[machine_name] folder based on the deploy method are listed below;
1. Status file: The “Status.xml” file contains the status information like Install Scheduled, Installing, Install Successfully or Install Failed.
2. Error log: The “*_ErrorLog” files are created by the SOLIDWORKS Installation Manager. Basically, these files are copies of the sldlMLog file.
For Manual/Pull Install it is “[UserName]log”
For Automatic/Push Install it is “log“
3. Product log: The logs that contain the product name are the Windows® Installer(Verbose) logs. These logs are created by the Microsoft® Installer (or MSI), that installs each product.T hey contain information that corresponds to the product specified in the file name. For instance, the “[UserName]_SOLIDWORKS.log” file will contain information only about the solidworks.msi installation. Upon installation of other products, there will be addition of product name log files.
For Manual/Pull Install it is “[UserName]_[ProductName].log”
For Automatic/Push Install it is “SYSTEM_[ProductName].log“
In order to review the Installation Manager or Windows Installer logs, we suggest you follow SOLIDWORKS Knowledge Base article QA00000117097.
You can open these log files with Notepad to view the Installation activities and note down the ErrorCodes or error/warning messages, if any.
You can then search for relevant Q&A articles in our DSxClient Knowledge Base that will assist you in troubleshooting the problem.
If the issue continues to occur even after following the steps in relevant Q&A articles, you can always raise the issue with us to create a Service Request and let us help you resolve the problem.