SOLIDWORKS’ essential settings focus on improving clarity, speeding up modelling and keeping files organised. Key recommendations include enabling the Freeze Bar, prompting for sheet formats, reusing view letters, switching to a plain background, auto‑rotating to sketch planes, using fully defined sketches and enabling snapping for accuracy. Performance benefits come from turning off Verification on Rebuild and saving new in‑context parts externally. Templates and file locations should be kept simple, features named on creation and backup copies enabled for safety. Importing is smoother with 3D Interconnect turned off, while extras like customised shortcuts, controlled add‑ins and the Copy Settings Wizard help personalise and transfer your setup.