Hello dear SW fellows,

we are currently running SW 2012 (expired maintenance). We are re-enabling our maintenance and will update to SW 2014, latest SP.

We experienced many problems in the past with the SW toolbox, such as the 'big screw' issue, and others.

Also, I have read in the past dozens of posts of people having problems with the toolbox, especially when it came to the following:

- Updating: problems when updating SW.

- Sharing assemblies: problems either when sending assemblies with toolbox parts, or opening assemblies coming from a different company with a different toolbox installation.

- Performance: large toolbox file size

These are definitely all cons, but I am wondering if in 2014 the toolbox is better than it was in the past?

At this time, we are downloading hardware 3D files from McMaster, and creating our own library. This works very well, but is extremely time consuming to build.

I would love to use the SW toolbox, if I knew for sure it would be stable and problem-free; especially considering it has much more than screws and nuts, like retaining rings, bearings, etc etc.

Also, at this time we are not using any PDM, but upon updating to SW 2014, we will also install Workgroup PDM.

I assume we could place the toolbox in the WPDM, and only have to manage one toolbox for all users, correct?

I look forward to hearing your opinions.

Are people still manually building their own libraries, or is the toolbox more reliable now?

Thank you.