This "forum" has completely shattered everything I know about how the internet is used, aging me forward 3 decades into a boomer, only without social security. This is how we used to do online forums "back in my day":

1. Go to the forum

2. click "search topics"

3. Type in some words about the thing you want to know

4. Click on some of the search results to read what people said about that thing

If you've grown up with the internet and are in your 30's, unfortunately "3D Experience" has decided you're an old obsolete fossil of a human and have to forget all of that stuff. Here's how forums work, the 3D Experience way:

1. Create a login for "3D Experience"

2. Click in the "search" bar

3. Type in some words about the thing you want to know

**Strap in folks, we're about to go for a ride**

4.3D Experience will show you a list of topics about the words you searched

5. Click on the topic. This will do nothing. Click it a bunch more times because that's how the internet used to work.

6. Click on some of the other topics just to be sure it's not just that one. These will not work either.

7. Right click on the topic. Instead of your browser's right click menu that lets you go forward/back, open in a new tab, ect... you get a single menu that says "Preview". Click that.

8. "Preview" will take you to the post, but display only the poster's original question. Additionally, it will tease you at the bottom of the page that this topic has been in fact replied to several times AND solved, but you can't navigate to the full discussion through any logical strategic clicking. I guess they decided that the "preview" function is a critical tool to everybody who's wanted to ask a question, and instead of arriving at the answer, they're just interested in finding out if anyone else has asked the question. Ok Preview, keep your secrets.

9. Click the < Results button to go back to search results. Click spam the topic again a few more times because this can't be happening.

10. Repeat the above steps in a different browser, just in case. No difference. This can't be real.

11. Open a new tab and google: solidworks forum "<topic title you previewed>"

12. Click on one of the results from my.solidworks.com

13. Use ctrl+F, or enter in the search bar "<topic title you previewed>"

14. Click on the topic. My.Solidworks.com will now prompt you to click "open in forum" to bring you to back to the "3D Experience". Make sure you have your login.

15. You can now read the whole post you're interested in, the "3D Experience" way.

Congratulations on your first 3D Experience.