I have found that editing gears in SolidWorks to be very painful.

I don't under stand why the warning of "read only file" pops up even after saving as a copy number of times. Why is free editing of the gear (extrude cut, extrude boss on gear surface) not allowed? Is there any method to do this with ease?

It would be very helpful if someone suggests me any alternative software (exclusively for gears, fast unlike solidworks) first to play with gears and then get the gear ratios for my gear assembly right. And then I will use SolidWorks toolbox to import the gears of required dimensions and model the gear assembly. Because it is again painful to import each gear and edit the gear and make an assembly on my low performance PC.

Thank you very much. Looking forward for suggestions.

Regards

Siva