Archicad 9 with Lion

[Anonymous]

Has anyone been able to figure out a way to use Archicad 9 with the new Lion operating system for macs and if not, does anyone know how much it costs to upgrade to Arch 10.

[Eduardo Rolon]

Please read this

http://archicadwiki.com/MacOSXLion

and you cannot upgrade to 10 you will have to upgrade to 15.

[Karl Ottenstein]

Also, Laura, only more recent Intel Macs can be upgraded to Lion. (An older post from you indicated you were on a G4 Powerbook...but hopefully you have something newer and zippier now.)

To clarify what Eduardo said - while you cannot upgrade just to 10, upgrading to 15 (the only upgrade option) lets you run all versions prior to 15. But, that could be a lot of money to just run 10.

Cheers,
Karl

[Anonymous]

Hi Karl,
So from what I am reading, even if we bought Archicad 15 x 2 for major $$$, it might not work on Lion now until they work out the bugs.

The problem is that I already installed Lion on 2 of my computers and one of them is our company computer which has all of our working files for present projects therefore, we can no longer open any of them. Apple said that we would have to save all our files on an external HD, and do a clean install which means it would erase everything on the computer and after we reinstall Snow Leopard, we have to migrate all info back onto the computer. Nothing is backed up on that computer either.

I did figure out a way to open Archicad on the imac that has Lion on it. It's a little crazy but it works. My old computer still has Tiger with Archicad running on it therefore, I am using the new "Screen Sharing" feature (which is awesome) in Lion to run the program on. In other words, my husband can use Archicad on the imac with lion as long as he is working from my computer which is showing up on his screen. It's probably going to be slower than a turtle but, if it works until they find a fix we will at least be able to survive till we figure out our next move.

Thanks for your help.

[Karl Ottenstein]

Hi Laura,

Too late for you, but a reminder to anyone who has not yet upgraded their OS - whether Lion or a Windows upgrade: never upgrade without a FULL backup. Too many things can go wrong, even though they usually don't. 😉

Also too late for you, but as mentioned in other threads and in all tip web sites and blogs concerning upgrading to Lion: anyone considering upgrading to Lion MUST make sure that all (100%) of critical programs on their system show as "Intel" and not PPC since no PPC programs (such as AC 9) can not run under Lion.

Before you do anything, get an external drive for each Lion machine that has unique / meaningful data on it and let Time Machine make a complete backup. (And/or make a clone of the disk.) I recommend an external drive that has Firewire 800 and is 7200 RPM as the speed over a USB 2 drive is significant. Size at least equal to your internal drive, preferably double.

Since you have AC 9 running on your old computer, open every project and save it as a PLA (archive) in preparation for migration to 10 or higher. Using a PLA vs a PLN will make your life much easier, particularly if there is more than a project or two to migrate.

AC 10 can open all of your 9 files, so now I understand why you were asking the question. Rather than revert your computers to Snow Leopard (somewhat major task and possible loss of data/preferences - and a waste of time/effort) - I would bite the bullet and upgrade at least one of your licenses to 15 so that you can at least run 10 (which you can download) or higher to open your projects from 9 and continue working on your new/updated machines. Keep your AC 9 application folder around until you've saved the AC 9 and AC 9 SE library folders from it since you'll need them. (This is less important if you have created PLA's for every project.)

As you can see in this Wiki article:
http://www.archicadwiki.com/ArchiCAD%20versions

all of versions 10 through 15 can open files in version 9 format.

Cheers,
Karl