OPENING OLDER VERSIONS OF ARCHICAD

[KeesW]

There has been some discussion about this lately and many users seem to think that being able to open about 3 versions back is OK.

I think that the issue has changed with annual upgrades.

Large project often extend over 4 or more years and when we had bi-annual (or longer) upgrades, a project could straddle a couple of versions and early drawings continued to be openable until the completion of the project. Now, with annual upgrades, very initial design drawings for large projects starting in one version might not be openable at the end of the works. Offices will be forced to keep many more versions running and/or saving early work for later retrieval is much more critical. Saving in old versions for archiving is one thing; having to make special provisions whilst the project is still running is quiete another.

I think that Graphisoft should seriously develop protocols and/or methods to more easily retrieve work started on old versions without requiring offices to maintain multiple versions of Archicad.

[Barry Kelly]

Hello Kees,
You can still open a version 10 file in 14 and work on it.
You don't need to switch to the version 14 library - just keep using the version 10 one.
Doesn't this not work for you?

In fact you can open and work on files older than 10 but the big difference with those is they don't have the built in layout book.
But the separate plotmaker file can be opened separately or it can be merged into the main file.

Personally I prefer to swap for a newer library but then I don't use the default Archicad library. I have my own custom libraries for each version.
Basically the same library each version but with some objects updtaed to make use of new features.
Therefore I don't have the migration problems with object going missing.
But then that is what the migration libraries are for I believe.

And as you mentioned you can keep all old versions installed and use those for old projects with no problems so long as your operating system will still run the old versions.

Is it mainly the libraries that you are having trouble with?
I don't do large work (just residential) so may not be aware of the problems you are experiencing.
But I still open files back to verion 6.5 (although less frequently now as I upgrade and save them when I do).

Barry.

[Erwin Edel]

I can think of zero issues opening an ArchiCAD18 project in ArchiCAD22, maybe some minor issues with stairs. ArchiCAD20 still runs very smooth for us though.

ArchiCAD17 project will only have minor issues with cinerender.

ArchiCAD16 project will require some work, but is 6 years old. I think it still runs on Windows10 if needed, not sure about the MAC side of things. I did recently migrate from 16 to 20 on an older project, required some planning ahead but the geometry still opened fine, just spend an hour or two at most to get all the attributes to behave with current template.

Opening ArchiCAD9 in ArchiCAD10, however, now that was a big challenge as I recall.

Just my opinion, maybe your experiences have been worse.

[Szabolcs Miko]

Unfortunately, all the new features, performance and productivity improvements that we provide with every version have a drawback: they may make some the migration of some projects difficult. Although, we do release a Migration Guide with every version's release, helping the clients understand a bit better, what needs a closer attention. The last two are uploaded to HelpCenter, accessible to anyone:
For AC 21:
https://helpcenter.graphisoft.com/user-guide/64770/
For AC22:
Migrating from versions 18-21 https://helpcenter.graphisoft.com/user-guide/76177/
Migrating from older versions - https://helpcenter.graphisoft.com/user-guide/76180/