Backwards Compatibilty

[Anonymous]

Has anyone considered the limitations of only being able to open projects in V11 back to V8?? That takes us back to 2003, and yet we can open Autocad projects back to 1990?? Seems to me to be something missing here?

[Anonymous]

Piotr wrote:

Philippe wrote:
I did not install AC11 yet but the documentation says you can use the dongle back to 7.0 installation.
Actually, we have kept a 6.5 "open source" version, which allows us to get our oldest projects (5). I think GS could distribute a free AC 6.5 CD, so we do not have to use the dark side way…Who's going to professionally use a 6 years old soft?

If You have the 7.0 CD You could actuallly find a 6.5 working with WIBU there...so no need to be on the dark side 😉

Best Regards,
Piotr

I am not sure what you are talking about but we do not have our old keys anymore. When the reseller gave us the new key (I do not remember which version), we had to give back the old one.

[Piotr Dobrowolski]

Philippe wrote:
I am not sure what you are talking about but we do not have our old keys anymore. When the reseller gave us the new key (I do not remember which version), we had to give back the old one.

If I remember correctly - there was a special compatibility folder on 7.0 CD where there were updates to the original 6.5 with the WIBU keys compatibility - If You are on the PC I will check up the CD later at home as I have the old boxes there 😉

Best Regards,
Piotr

[Anonymous]

Piotr wrote:

Philippe wrote:
I am not sure what you are talking about but we do not have our old keys anymore. When the reseller gave us the new key (I do not remember which version), we had to give back the old one.

If I remember correctly - there was a special compatibility folder on 7.0 CD where there were updates to the original 6.5 with the WIBU keys compatibility - If You are on the PC I will check up the CD later at home as I have the old boxes there 😉

Best Regards,
Piotr

Well might be useful for some others. In our office, we'll keep on using 9 and 6.5 only; it makes the full bridge for all our files.

[Anonymous]

This is areally frustrating problem! I have a lot of projects dating back to AC5! My diploma work included! And I really keep an AC9 version on my computer JUST to be able to open old projects!

Many of these projects are very important to me, I often go back to use them as am example for my current work. For instance - how often do you design an indoor swimming-pool facility? I have once! And if I have to do it again, I want to have a look at this project!

By the way, for AutoCAD there are applications which transform its files to ANY version backward and forward!

[TomWaltz]

At some point, it's cheaper to hire someone at minimum wage to update them all then to keep the old versions around (presumably on old machines they can even run on)

[Anonymous]

TomWaltz wrote:
At some point, it's cheaper to hire someone at minimum wage to update them all then to keep the old versions around (presumably on old machines they can even run on)

Yeah, this is an idea for a future business! 😉
I can imagine the slogan on the web-site:
Send us your old projects and get them back as new!

[Eduardo Rolon]

Another option is to keep an old version of Windows as a Virtual Machine with the old version of AC on it and run it using VMware, this is how I have my old DOS games running.

For I have Win2k as a VM running in Parallels in one of my Macs for running Autocad 2006 when I need it, in theory I could install AC07 to keep up to date.

[Petros Ioannou]

Maybe instead of keeping backup disks one should keep a shelf with old laptops with different Windoze+Archicad versions on each.


Petros

[Piotr Dobrowolski]

Philippe wrote:
Well might be useful for some others. In our office, we'll keep on using 9 and 6.5 only; it makes the full bridge for all our files.

OK I just checked the regular 7.0 and the famous "Silver Bullet" - and on both there is a "Support" directory with 3 subfolders "AC60", "AC65", "AC70" the first two contain the filest that should be used for replacing the original files inside the folders where 6.0 or 6.5 were installed - the last "AC70" contain the copyt060.apx - and it is self explanatory...

So it seems the oldest version that can be run on WIBU key is the 6.0

Best Regards,
Piotr

[stefan]

Install an old Windows NT or 2000 with ArchiCAD 6.5 or 7.0 in Virtual PC. I think that a Virtual PC should be able to recognize the dongle on the host hardware.

It might be worth to use a non-legal old copy, to avoid dongle incompatibilties... but that's clearly beyond being supported!

The advantage of old copies in Virtual PC (which is currently free, by the way) is that you can keep them running in an old environment (old Office, old OS, old drivers etc...) and can reset them are discard the undo-disk, so you can always get into an "clean" basic installation.