How do I do a clean uninstall & reinstall of Solidworks?

Note: Make backups of all templates, and customized items in SolidWorks!!

1) Go to Control Panel and click on "Add and remove Programs" Remove all SolidWorks that have been installed on your machine.

2) Go to Windows Explorer and remove all SolidWorks directories.

IMPORTANT: You have to be comfortable to remove data from registry because you can toast your entire computer if you delete the wrong item.

3) Go to Start\Run and type Regedit and click ok.

4) Then go to and remove the following in bold

Reg. settings to remove:

HKEY_Current_User\Software\Solidworks

HKEY_Local_Machine\Software\Solidworks
HKEY_Local_Machine\Software\Solidworks Corporation

If some of those reg settings are not there, it's ok the Uninstall took them out. Continue on.

Close and restart computer, and reinstall once your computer is back up. IMPORTANT: DO NOT install SW with any AV (Anti-Virus) running. If you can help it try and shutdown any files that are running in the background. This can lead to potential, and or possible problems later.


IMPORTANT: When installing to the next major release of SolidWorks. DO NOT install directly over your pre-existing SolidWorks. Make a new directory like Solidworks03.