I have a system that automatically generates new designs by a combination of copying and modifying template documents and referencing others.

For a very long time, I have depended on copied assemblies having a higher affinity for finding its referenced part documents in the new local directory that the directory of the original part documents it was created with.

I recently added a path in System Options->File Locations->Referenced Documents. Although the addition did not introduce any possibility that a different part files would be found for typical design, it inverted the file affinity from preferring local part files to perferring part files in their original locations.

I have read Search Routine for Referenced Documents in the SolidWorks help file. I have to admit that this is the documented behaviour. Step six says that after exhausting its recursive search that it "searches the path where the referenced document was last saved", whereas it otherwise starts at step 8 where it "searches the path of the active document, then recursively searches the path where the referenced document was last saved".

What I can say is that the intended behaviour is wrong. Adding a new path should introduce an opportunity for finding a file. It should not modify existing and, often, unrelated searchs.

Does anyone else consider this behaviour a bug?

- Tim