Hi All,

I believe I should probably "Know" this by now BUT I obviously don't understand all of it @ 100% so it's back to the researching mode and asking for H.E.L.P.

Sorry, no definition for that acronym just wanted it to stand out a little. How about - (H)iring (E)veryone else to (L)ook at your (P)roblem......

Okay, I'm (self) studying this at home with a set of textbooks by Authors: Paul Tran (Amazon.com) CSWP, CSWI, SolidWorks 2012 Part-1 - Basic Tools, Parts, Assemblies and Drawings. Also Author: Davis Planchard CSWP / SolidWorks 2012 Tutorial with Video Instruction.

My "Seat" is the most "basic" SW 2012, I don't have a subscription to the H.E.L.P. desk, so besides utilizing the provided tutorials on my downloaded product, I figured I would seek out as much extra info. as possible, and purchased the text books mentioned.

The ONLY help I have, (that I'm aware of anyway) is being able to ask questions from the wonderful folk's on this forum, Thank God for that-! I also read and re-read paragraph after paragraph after sentence followed by yet still another re-reading of whatever is keeping me stuck wherever im stuck.

My "Tools" consist of a 2011 Dell Inspiron 64 bit, (Windows Areo) and the following:

Graphics card info:

* - Chip Type: Intell HD graphics family.

* - DAC Type: Internal

* - Adapter string: Intel HD 3000

* - Bios: Intel video bios

* - T.A.G.M. - 1696mb

* - Dedicated vid-memory: 64mb

* - System Video Memory: 0 zero, zip, nada.....

* - System shared memory: 1632mb

I know that I need a workstation, portable would be best and they're only between \$1,500.00 - \$6000.00 for the ultimate build-it-yourself deal, so I ordered four, one for each bedroom.......ya right-! I'm working this issue but for now all I have is the laptop. A couple of tech's at MCAD have informed me about the Workstation(s) but also mentioned that I should be able to finish the tutorials with the Dell I have now.

So here's the problem I'm having. (I apologize for all the afore mentioned I just wanted to bring anyone reading this up-to-speed with what / where I'm at sitting right here talking to anyone of you, hope I didn't bore or waste anyone's time).

In BOTH the SolidWorks integral tutorials,you are required to "SAVE" and "SAVE-AS" numerous files and templates and I guessing at this point, a few other things I'm not yet realizing or aware of.

In Mr. Paul Trans Textbook, he has devoted (2) chapters to Setting-up your PC to "enhance" or make it easer to follow along with the text-book. These are entitled: Setting the system parameters, / Chapter 1: The System Settings (I can scan this page and post as an attachment if requested) and Chapter 2: Document Templates.

I went through each chapter judiciously and very carefully, and I believe I have done everything correctly as far as this is all concerned. I'm wondering if doing all this somehow confused or screwed-up my PC-???

What's happening is I'm now stuck on the third stage of tutorial one, creating the drawing of the 1st part (the 1st two PARTS actually) the square shelled box with the short round tube sticking out from the center. It's joined to a 2nd similar shaped and shelled box in the 2nd phase of the tutorial, followed by the drawing phase.

The REAL-DEAL NOW, I went to open the file of the completed assembly and NOTHING showed up-! Nothing came up inside the graphics field-!!! This is NOT the first time for this and a real COOL Individual from MCAD in Denver, Colorado tried to help me understand the difference between a template and/ or a regular folder (file or otherwise I guess) but I'm afraid I just didn't get it, because IF I had, I wouldn't be typing this 5000 word question.

It looks to me like somehow I'm getting some of my non-related files from my desktop MIXED IN with the files I'm trying to SAVE from all my work completed on the SW graphics field.

I'm going to go searching now for more (tutorials) on how to better understand how to save and save-as my work. I think that maybe I need some additional BASIC-TRAINING in PC's yet. I'm guessing there's something on my own PC under the HELP selection key or maybe @ Microsoft or somewhere out there in the vastness of the infamous Internet, maybe GCFlearnfree.org will have something. I'm going to take this path while waiting to see if anyone from this forum can suffer through my novel here and still want's to MAYBE help me, again, I apologize for the length of this message, in the future they won't need be as long.

My final question / thought was this: Can I simply re-name these "files" and they might self-sort (Is this a form of "default" or what's meant by the term default, is it not)-? or am I being wish-full at best-? I'm guessing the reason I having the issues is these "files-parts-assemb.etc" are not showing up inside the G-field is they're not responding to their NAME(s) or whatever and they're hanging out somewhere nearby waiting for me to call them by their correct name(s) or whatever, I've got myself all confused now-!

Thank You ALL for your time, any help would be greatly appreciated-!!!

Jonathan 

P.s. - Please let me know if anyone wants to see any of the table of contents pages from Paul Trans Text Book(s) to better understand and/ or visulize the settings info.

P.p.s. - My personal email address: rcarmorer@gmail.com