NOTE: This article is intended for IT professionals with an understanding of the command line/terminal interface.
This article is not intended for all users and is not a required procedure for installing Vectorworks in a standard work environment. Do not use these steps unless you are specifically attempting to initiate a silent install of Vectorworks in a network environment or are specifically instructed to do so by Vectorworks Technical Support.
The Vectorworks installer provides a command line interface for driving a silent installation from the command line.
Windows:
- We will use a temporary folder at C:\tmp (as an example) to store the necessary files.
- We recommend using 7-zip for Windows to extract the necessary files.
- If your installation is also offline, you will need an LDF file from the Customer Portal. Copy this file to C:\tmp.
-
Download a copy of the Windows Vectorworks Install Manager from the Customer Portal into C:\tmp.
- This is an exe file, but it's a self-extracting archive and can be treated as a .zip file.
- This exe will be named something like "Vectorworks 2025 Install Manager XXXXXX.exe".
-
Right click the exe file and choose 7-Zip-> Extract to <name>, and extract the archive to a folder.
- This will create a folder such as Vectorworks 2025 Install Manager 776367.
- Rename this folder to "VWIM" to follow the rest of this example.
- Start an administrator command prompt and type the following commands depending on what you want to do:
-
cd c:\tmp\VWIM\resources
- This puts you in the resources folder where the command line scripts are found.
-
To get information about the available commands:
- cli.bat
-
To get information about a specific command:
- cli.bat <command> --help
-
Specific example:
- cli.bat download --help
-
To see the list of potential updates/targets:
- cli.bat download --ls
-
To download a .vwupdate file:
- cli.bat download --dest c:\tmp --target <target>
-
Specific example:
- cli.bat download --dest c:\tmp --target Update0
- This will download a file Update0.vwim into c:\tmp that can later be used to do an offline update or full install.
- Note that alternately you can use the Install Manager GUI to easily download a .vwim file.
-
To perform an install from online sources:
- cli.bat install --installdir "C:\Program Files\Vectorworks 2025" --serial "ELXXXX-XXXXXX-XXXXXX-XXXXXX"
-
To perform an install from offline (local) sources:
-
cli.bat install --installdir "C:\Program Files\Vectorworks 2025" --serial "ELXXXX-XXXXXX-XXXXXX-XXXXXX" -i "C:\tmp\Update0.vwim" --ldf C:\tmp\XX-XXXXXX.ldf
- This uses the previously downloaded vwim file Update0.vwim.
- This uses the previously download ldf file XX-XXXXXX.ldf (from the Customer Portal).
-
cli.bat install --installdir "C:\Program Files\Vectorworks 2025" --serial "ELXXXX-XXXXXX-XXXXXX-XXXXXX" -i "C:\tmp\Update0.vwim" --ldf C:\tmp\XX-XXXXXX.ldf
-
To install the viewer:
- Use "VIEWER" as your serial number
- Don't supply an LDF.
- cli.bat install --installdir "C:\Program Files\Vectorworks 2025 Viewer" --serial "VIEWER"
MacOS:
-
For this example we will use the folder /tmp/vwim. You can create and change to this folder by opening a terminal and typing:
- cd /tmp && mkdir vwim && cd vwim
-
Download the latest Mac Vectorworks Install Manager.zip from the Customer Portal.
- This will be named similar to: Vectorworks 2025 Install Manager-30.0.776374-mac.zip
- For this example, we will rename this zip file to vwim.zip and copy it to /tmp/vwim.
-
If you're performing an offline installation:
-
Download a LDF file from the Customer Portal.
- Copy this into /tmp/vwim, for example /tmp/vwim/XX-XXXXXX.ldf
-
Download a LDF file from the Customer Portal.
-
Extract the VWIM.zip:
- unzip vwim.zip
- This creates "Vectorworks 2025 Install Manager.app" inside /tmp/vwim.
-
Enter the resources folder (a simplification for this example)
- cd "Vectorworks 2025 Install Manager.app/Contents/Resources"
-
On MacOS, we will use the "sudo" command to gain administrator access. Because of how sudo and users work, we need to gather information about the user account that will be the owner/main user of Vectorworks. Specifically we need the uid (user ID) and gid (group ID) of the user.
- In this example we will use commands to put the user and group ids into variables and also print them out.
- export myUid=$(id -u) && echo "User $USER id: $myUid stored in variable myUid"
- export myGid=$(id -g) && echo "User $USER gid: $myGid stored in variable myGid"
- Now we have the variables $myUid and $myGid ready to use in subsequent commands below.
- We are now ready to issue commands to the command line interface.
-
To get information about the available commands:
- ./cli.sh
-
To get information about a specific command:
- ./cli.sh <command> --help
-
Specific example:
- ./cli.sh download --help
-
To see the list of potential updates/targets:
- ./cli.sh download --ls
-
To download a .vwupdate file:
- ./cli.sh download --dest <path> --target <target>
-
Specific example:
- ./cli.sh download --dest /tmp/vwim --target Update0
- This will download a file Update0.vwim into /tmp that can later be used to do an offline update or full install.
- Note that alternately you can use the Install Manager GUI to easily download a .vwim file.
-
To perform an install from online sources:
-
sudo ./cli.sh install --installdir "/Applications/Vectorworks 2025" --serial "ELXXXX-XXXXXX-XXXXXX-XXXXXX" --uid $myUid --gid $myGid
- Note we're using the uid and gid variables we stored earlier in this guide.
- This will install Vectorworks and give ownership and access to the specified user.
- The source files and ldf file will be retrieved online automatically during installation.
-
sudo ./cli.sh install --installdir "/Applications/Vectorworks 2025" --serial "ELXXXX-XXXXXX-XXXXXX-XXXXXX" --uid $myUid --gid $myGid
-
To perform an install from offline (local) sources:
-
sudo ./cli.sh install --installdir "/Applications/Vectorworks 2025" --serial "ELXXXX-XXXXXX-XXXXXX-XXXXXX" -i "/tmp/vwim/Update0.vwim" --ldf /tmp/vwim/XX-XXXXXX.ldf --uid $myUid --gid $myGid
- This uses the previously downloaded vwim file Update0.vwim.
- This uses the previously download ldf file XX-XXXXXX.ldf (from the Customer Portal).
-
sudo ./cli.sh install --installdir "/Applications/Vectorworks 2025" --serial "ELXXXX-XXXXXX-XXXXXX-XXXXXX" -i "/tmp/vwim/Update0.vwim" --ldf /tmp/vwim/XX-XXXXXX.ldf --uid $myUid --gid $myGid
-
To install the viewer:
- Use "VIEWER" as your serial number
- Don't supply an LDF.
- sudo ./cli.sh install --installdir "/Applications/Vectorworks 2025 Viewer" --serial "VIEWER" --uid $myUid --gid $myGid
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