File Recovery tries to open in old Education licence

[JohnM]

I used to have an Education license while at university I now have a commercial license that I work in. I used this method to open in commercial mode because i couldn't find a way to remove the Edu license. https://community.Graphisoft.com/t5/Setup-License-articles/Run-Archicad-Educational-along-with-Comme...

Recently my PC crashed and when I do the file recover it tries to open in education, says it cant and that I need to save the file in a education version and then closes. How can I force recovery to open with the commercial license. Or how do I remove the Education license because I have no use for it anyway.

[Barry Kelly]

To open a recovery file you have to start Archicad first.

Are you sure you are starting the commercial version and not the EDU version?

Commercial can open an EDU file, but it will automatically switch to EDU mode in the software.

But I am not sure if EDU version can open a commercial file (PLN) - which is why it might be asking you to convert it - I am not sure as I don't have an EDU license.

That is why I am wondering if you are actually starting with the commercial license.

Otherwise it sounds like a problem for your local Archicad support - assuming you have a support agreement with them.

Barry.

[JohnM]

Hi Barry thanks for the response.
It is starting Archicad in commercial, From the "Start Archicad" screen if I open a normal project it opens normally into commercial Archicad and works. It is when I open the red recovered files that it appears to restart in Education and I get the error.
Is there no way to remove the Edu license? If I uninstall and reinstall will that remove the Edu license and will I be able to still access the the recovery files?

Regards John

[Barry Kelly]

Reinstalling will probably kill off the recovery file as well as the info is all stored in your 'user' files.

They will probably be re-written when you reinstall.

I am sure the EDU license is stored in your user file somewhere as well.

It may be in a hidden section so you will need to 'show hidden files & folders' on your system.

Where it is I am not sure.

One other thing you can try is in your 'user' files you will find your auto-saved documents.

I don't think they are hidden.

Somewhere like this ... C:\Users\user_name\Graphisoft\AutoSave-25

Look for a file with the correct date (the time of the crash) that has an .FDB extension.

It should be a similar size to what your PLN file was.

COPY this file somewhere else and rename it and change the extension to PLN.

Try and open that file (it is just the PLN in disguise).

If that still tries to open as EDU, then something has happened to it - contact your local support to see if they can do anything about it.

I can't guarantee if that will work, but no harm in trying.

Actually, even easier (but you may lose your latest changes), is do you have the original PLN or the BPN for the file?

The PLN will be as good as your last save - unless the crash corrupted it.

And the BPN will be one save behind that.

Barry.

[Barry Kelly]

I just found this post that tells you where the EDU license is stored.

https://community.graphisoft.com/t5/Setup-License-forum/PROBLEM-with-trial-education-license-and-usi...

You could try deleting that license (or moving it so you still have a copy just in case you ever need it?).

I don't think you need to uninstall any software because as far as i know the commercial and EDU software is all the same - it is just the license that alters it.

Barry.

[JohnM · Accepted solution]

Hi Barry
Thanks, I had already tried that, It didn't work. Archicad must store Edu license somewhere else now.
I gave up and uninstalled Archicad, licence manager, etc and reinstalled it all again. It worked and I don't have the Edu license anymore and surprisingly it found the recovery files automatically and recovered them all correctly including the teamwork one.
I understand why Graphisoft has a locked education version, it would a lot more straight forward if it was completely standalone version and it used a different .exe file extension eg .epln
So I would recommend if you are migrating from education to commercial license uninstall completely and start from fresh.
Thanks for trying
regards John