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May 30, 2003 at 9:38am
by Brian Users of SolidWorks are often confused by the subtle differences between AutoRecover and Backup. This section will explore some of these subtleties and help the user to benefit from these functions.
AutoRecover
The AutoRecover option automatically saves information about your active part, assembly or drawing documents. This helps you to prevent loss of data when the system terminates unexpectedly. To set this option, click Tools, Options, General and select Save AutoRecover info every (n) changes. This allows you to specify how often SolidWorks saves information about the changes. In a part or assembly document, a change is a rebuild or an action that requires a rebuild, such as the addition of a feature. In a drawing document, a change is any action such as changing a dimension, creating a section view, or adding an annotation.
When you install SolidWorks, the system automatically creates a folder called swxauto in the Windows temp directory, which stores the information that is saved by AutoRecover while you work on your document. The information is useful when the software shuts down unexpectedly. The next time you start SolidWorks, a prompt will inform you that documents from your last session were not closed properly. Click Yes to recover the file. To disable AutoRecover, simply un check the check box in Tools, Options, General.
Note: Autorecover is not the same as the user clicking the Save button; it does not save over the users original files. It saves a backup copy of the active document in a temporary folder in case there is an unexpected termination (power outage, abnormal termination, shutdown etc.). You can save over your original files when you recover the files the next time you start SolidWorks.
Backup
The Backup option stores a backup of the original document before any changes are saved to the file. You can think of it as a file one version before the last saved version of the document. As a file is being saved, it checks to see if a file of the same name already exists where the file is being saved and if it does, it simply renames the existing file before overwriting it. If erroneous changes to an active document are saved, you can undo them by opening the backup file. This will bring the document back to the point before the changes were made. To set this option, click Tools, Options, System Options, Backups. Use the scroll arrow to change the entry for Number of backup copies per document. Scroll to 0 for none or select 1-10 for automatic backup. The name of a backup copy is “Backup of original filename and extension.” You can also name a directory to which all backup copies will be stored by default. Click Tools, Options, System Options, Backups and use the button to specify the directory.
Note: If you click Save again without any changes to the document, the Backup file will be the same as the original.
