PlotMaker 9 -> ArchiCAD 8.1

[Anonymous]

I have a team who created a model in 8.1, but used PlotMaker 9 for the layout book. One of their members had his computer upgraded to XP and PlotMaker now insists on opening the model in 9 -- which fails. I played with the file associations, but nothing worked. I'm stumped as to why it opened AC8.1 the first time around. How do I get it to open AC8.1 in the background on this project?

[TomWaltz]

I think Plotmaker looks for the Archicad executable in its own installation directory. I don't believe there is a way to re-point it to look back at 8.1

[Anonymous]

Back when I was using AC 8.1 and AC 9 concurrently, Whichever AC version was updated or installed last became the "Default" Program for the opening up of a Double Clicked PLN file. With AC 9 installed last I had to reinstall AC 8.1 or just open the application first and then use the File Open from within the Software.

I do not know if Re-installing AC 8.1 on that Machine will work to "re-assign" Background AC to AC 8.1. And if it does what will it do with the PM files that want to open the Version 9?

[Anonymous]

We continued testing yesterday and no good solutions were found, but I did run into some very strange behavior. I used PlotMaker 9 and it launched ArchiCAD 9 in the background.

I saved the PLP as a PLN and relinked all model views to the PLN. Then I attempted to update all 378 views. Note that the background version of ArchiCAD was already launched because I tried one view to see what would happen. Also, BG ArchiCAD shows up on my computer, so I can see what it's doing.

The following is what happened when I updated all 378 views:

First 15 minutes -- BG ArchiCAD had CPU pegged at 100%, no change on PlotMaker progress bar or screen.
Next 5 minutes -- PlotMaker closed BG ArchiCAD, then started a new one.
Next 20 minutes -- BG ArchiCAD had CPU pegged at 100%, no change on PlotMaker progress bar or screen.
Next 2 hours -- Updated all 378 views. Took from 20 to 120 seconds for each view.

I had the Task Manager open so I could monitor what the system was doing. During the 15 and 20 minute intervals the total amount of used RAM never varied more that 0.01Meg.

I'll post more if I learn anything today.