Why Can't I Delete a Configuration in SOLIDWORKS?

Are you trying to delete a configuration of a part or assembly in SOLIDWORKS but can’t? Are you getting the message “None of the selected entities could be deleted”? We’ll take a look at why that may be happening. In this scenario, we’ll go through an example file and attempt to delete unwanted configurations.

First, the configuration that you want to delete must not be active. This also means that the configuration to be deleted must not be the only configuration. If there’s only one configuration in the part or assembly, that configuration will always be active. We can confirm a configuration is active if there is a green checkmark next to the configuration name. The text is also displayed in black, as seen in the below image. Inactive configurations will display in gray.

Right clicking an active configuration does not provide a “Delete” option.

Now, we instead try to delete the configuration by selecting it and pressing the delete key. This time, the message “None of the selected entities could be deleted” is displayed.

If we double click a different configuration to activate it, we now have the option to delete the unneeded configuration.

Now the part is ready to be used in an assembly and a drawing. We already have two configurations to display the part in an assembly and a drawing. We’ll see how we’re not allowed to delete these configurations in the part if the assembly or drawing file is also open and referencing that configuration.

Here’s the part being referenced in an assembly including a bolt and O-ring. The component always uses this hardware. Creating this assembly makes it easy to include them all bundled in a top-level assembly.

But, let’s say we want to delete the “In Assembly” configuration in the part. Watch the animation below. We open the part and keep the assembly open, switch the active configuration to the configuration we want to keep, and attempt to delete the “In Assembly” configuration. Again, SOLIDWORKS gives us the familiar “None of the selected entities could be deleted” message, even though the “In Assembly” configuration is not active. But, if we close the assembly file, then we are able to delete the “In Assembly” configuration because it is no longer open in our session. We would also be able to delete the configuration in question if the part was deleted from the assembly or if the reference is changed to show a different configuration in the assembly.

This scenario also applies to drawings in a similar way. If an open drawing is referencing a configuration, that configuration cannot be deleted. To be able to delete the configuration, that drawing needs to be closed, or the views in the drawing must be either deleted or changed to reference a different configuration.

To summarize, if you’re not being allowed to delete a configuration, first the configuration cannot be active. Secondly, the configuration cannot be referenced by any currently open documents such as an assembly or drawing. Remove that reference from the session of SOLIDWORKS, and you’ll be able to delete the configuration as expected.

Thanks for checking out the Alignex blog! Make sure to subscribe to have more content like this delivered straight to your inbox.