Our company is having an issue with our local "working directories" and Solidworks descriptions. We currently use Solidworks Workgroup PDM and while working on a design, the designers are working locally on their C:/ drives. There is normally a folder on their desktops where they work out of. Since we use non-smart part numbering the designers rely on the "description" tag within Windows to read the custom description property from the parts/assy's.

I know there is an issue where the descriptions do not display and I do know the fix for that; this is not the issue. When opening up a "working directory," there are many parts and assemblies in a typical one (typically 100-200 files). The problem that we're having is that while loading the custom descriptions the task "Windows Explorer" spikes CPU usage and actually hangs. The CPU will actually just hover at 99% consumption until the Windows Explorer task either crashes or is ended and restarted. I have worked with our VAR on this issue and they were not able to diagnose the issue. This has been happening for the last 2 or 3 Solidworks releases, and throughout a variety of operating systems (Win 8.1 and now 10). All of the design computers have SSD drives so throughput should not be an issue.

I cannot understand why this is happening, but it has been frustrating for some of our designers that work with us. We have reinstalled software and changed computers so it is not a Solidworks install issue or computer specific issue. I am hoping someone has a viable solution to this issue. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.