Saving assemblies without parts coming from search.pro locations

[MatthewV]

I am using :

• Creo Parametric 7.0.7.0 
• Windows 11 Professionnal Version 22H2
  

I have a search.pro file and I specified its location with the search_path_file option in the config.pro file. The locations contained in the search.pro file contains standard parts that will never change.

My issue is that when saving an assembly, I would like to save all the parts but not the ones contained in these locations. Is it possible to achieve that and how ?

[tbraxton]

A brute force approach is to use the OS admin permissions to set the directories as read only for users of Creo. This should prevent Creo from writing to those directories.

[MatthewV]

What I mean is more when saving a backup assembly to have an option to save everything but not the standard parts. I could achieve this by saving a copy and then select re-use manually for each of those standard parts and save a copy for the others (Although I would have to change every name to do that)

I don't know wether it's possible to tweak the behavior of "saving a backup" ?

[StephenW]

Save-As-Backup is a very specific operation that is designed to make a complete openable copy of a model. The intent is to be a COMPLETE model, there is no option to change this behavior.

[tbraxton]

Saving a backup is an important distinction not mentioned in the OP. Windchill would manage this of course but I assume that you do not work in a Windchill environment. I do not think Creo offers any way to control this out of the box.

The function of the save a backup command is to save the active model and all dependent models in session when executed. When backing up a file it and all dependent objects are saved and written to disc. I am pretty sure this is independent of any config options related to what is saved.

About Saving Files (ptc.com)

Be advised that when you use save a backup it also changes the destination directory to which any back up model is written.

To Back Up a File (ptc.com)

[KenFarley · Accepted solution]

The simplest way to do what you want is to not use Creo to save the files, but to copy them in the file system. We make extensive use of parts and assemblies shared among hundreds of assemblies, things like fasteners and such. To avoid your problem I always "manually" save things, rather than let Creo make copies of the parts and assemblies used in the assembly.

If there are a large number of files in a directory and I don't know which pertain to my particular assembly, I will sometimes just copy the assembly into another directory, then try to open it in a fresh session. It will yell at me about missing files, and I will copy them over to the new directory, too. Conveniently, they will all be red in the model tree so I'll know what to look for. Not optimal or a one button solution, but I end up with a "clean" assembly without a lot of unneeded files in the new work directory.