Command Line Installation of Vectorworks 2025

On 11/5/2024 at 9:55 PM, Tim Ardoin said:

@RMPSL 

I'll think about this speed difference. I doubt MSI packages unpack much faster than a zip, but there could be overhead for .vwim in general we could optimize out.

 

I do have a question though. Our current thinking is that MSI puts you on the "MSI" path where to update you just install the new MSI, rather than a hybrid of installing with MSI and then using the updater. Do you think that's ok? Internally MSI works very differently from how the VWIM/Updater work as far as tracking installed files so I worry about some cases like uninstall after an update. That's why there's no updater (VWIM now) after installing from MSI.

 

 

One thing I noticed re speed difference is the size difference between MSI and VWIM offline source: MSI is about 8GB, while VWIM size is nearly double.

And yes, with Vectorworks updating with MSI means always uninstalling and doing a full reinstall with the new version, which is a deal breaker for MSI in our case.
But it doesn't have to be this way, MSI is able to apply differential updates via .MSP packages (Adobe Reader does this, it's official MSI is from 2015 (!) and we just push the latest MSP right after deploying the MSI), maybe you could see if you are able to provide those?

In further testing I also ran into some issue with the G-series install via MSI: I did get the prompt to provide an LDF, and of course I did that, but it just kept asking - even after copying it to the install directory manually.

We'll stick to the VWIM CLI for now. 🙂

8 hours ago, knijgh said:

Hi all,

 

I have installed 2 variants here using the cli method cli.bat install --installdir "C:\Program Files\Vectorworks 2025" --serial "ELXXXX-XXXXXX-XXXXXX-XXXXXX" 1 variant in English, and this works well, at first it did not want to start but it turned out that the Site Protection Server also had to be updated, the other variant in Dutch, a license code had to be entered when starting up, this was apparently not included with the above method. I also saw that it did not appear in the control panel/programs so manual uninstallation is not possible. Is it also possible not to place a shortcut of the installation folder on the desktop, but a shortcut to Vectorwork.exe. Now I can do this with powershell but it would be more convenient if this happened immediately.

 

Thanks in advance

Sounds like your VWIM isn't up to date. It should self-update now (bug preventing that was fixed), but to be sure I'd recommend doing it manually:
cli.bat download-latest-updater c:\vwim -p w

This should at least fix the missing programs&features entry and shortcut.
 

Edited November 7, 2024 by RMPSL

16 hours ago, RMPSL said:

Sounds like your VWIM isn't up to date. It should self-update now (bug preventing that was fixed), but to be sure I'd recommend doing it manually:
cli.bat download-latest-updater c:\vwim -p w

This should at least fix the missing programs&features entry and shortcut.
 

 

thanks for your response
i ran the command you suggested, then ran the installer manually, so there was a version difference in the VWIM, after installing it indicated that everything was up to date, when I click on the three lines at the top right and choose download, only update 1 is listed as the latest update, so I expect the Dutch version to be behind the English version.

On 11/8/2024 at 12:27 PM, knijgh said:

 

thanks for your response
i ran the command you suggested, then ran the installer manually, so there was a version difference in the VWIM, after installing it indicated that everything was up to date, when I click on the three lines at the top right and choose download, only update 1 is listed as the latest update, so I expect the Dutch version to be behind the English version.

It's the VWIM that needed updating in order for the CLI installer to work properly. Using the new VWIM CLI you should now get the entry in programs&features and the desktop shortcut.

On 10/29/2024 at 11:43 PM, Tim Ardoin said:

So to summarize:

• Self-updating for CW is broken but will be fixed tomorrow morning (nice find on the vwim/vwim thing).
• Once self-update works, a new VWIM (either from self-update or downloading again) will:
  • Not yet have the CLI uninstall option
    • Will be present in Update 2. Talk to me if this is unacceptable.
  • Will fix Windows lack of programs & features entry

I can confirm that everything is working now. 
Thank you very much, Tim!

Quote

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.

This isn't correct anymore.
Extracting the downloaded EXE will give you a "$PLUGINSDIR" folder.
Inside that folder you will find a file named app64.7z
Extracting that file will give you the actual VWIM files & folders.

I am using the 30.3.791806 VWIM on macOS Sequoia. While I had experienced success with earlier versions of VWIM downloading the content on the fly and installing, I am having a nearly 95% failure rate with this version. It appears to be timing out and/or failing on validation of the payload.

 

To be clear, what I have done is taken the latest version of VWIM, placed it in a standard macOS Installer package (.pkg), and used a postinstall script referencing it to do the install. The postinstall script looks like this:
 

vers="2025"
vwipathroot="$(dirname $0)"   # points to the location within the pkg where VWIM is located
# Install Vectorworks by downloading on the fly
"${vwipathroot}/Vectorworks ${vers} Install Manager.app/Contents/Resources/cli.sh" install --installdir "/Applications/Vectorworks ${vers}" --serial G-redacted-P --uid 0 --gid 80

 

This allows me to push out the install with my MDM (Jamf Pro). As I said, this was working with an earlier version of VW 2025 being installed on macOS Sonoma. I build this package in an automated fashion using AutoPkg so that I can rebuild it easily for each new release. This is also why I haven't attempted to pre-download the content, as I will always have to do manual work for each release for that to happen, so downloading on the fly seemed better since I have very good network throughput.

 

Any clues on why this might be happening or where I might look (specific logs?) to suss this out further?

Anthony, Tim,

 

I've done something similar to the above. pushed this out via Addigy MDM and this is the error message I got:

 

BaseError: Could not get admin privileges
    at ./Vectorworks 2025 Install Manager.app/Contents/Resources/cli.js:18036:33
    at process.processTicksAndRejections (node:internal/process/task_queues:95:5) {
  type: 'elevateError',
  keyList: []
}

Node.js v18.15.0

 

I think all MDM executes via root. I've done chmod -R 777 to the installer folder and still got the same results. 

 

Kevin

Is there a way to do an offline silent installation of the viewer?

 

This command will download the files from the internet

• cli.bat install --installdir "C:\Program Files\Vectorworks 2025 Viewer" --serial "VIEWER

 

For the full version you can use the Update0.vwim to do an offline installation, but for the Viewer, it is not possible to download a ".vwim"-File.

I also didn´t find a possibility to download it via the Install Manager GUI.

 

Would be nice to have a possibility to download something like a Viewer.vwim and use it for an offline silent installation of the Viewer.

Using it like that: cli.bat install --installdir "C:\Program Files\Vectorworks 2025 Viewer" --serial "VIEWER -i "/tmp/vwim/Viewer.vwim"

 

On 1/5/2025 at 9:30 PM, KevinTK said:

Anthony, Tim,

 

I've done something similar to the above. pushed this out via Addigy MDM and this is the error message I got:

 

BaseError: Could not get admin privileges
    at ./Vectorworks 2025 Install Manager.app/Contents/Resources/cli.js:18036:33
    at process.processTicksAndRejections (node:internal/process/task_queues:95:5) {
  type: 'elevateError',
  keyList: []
}

Node.js v18.15.0

 

I think all MDM executes via root. I've done chmod -R 777 to the installer folder and still got the same results. 

 

Kevin

 

Seeing this error via Jamf Pro as well. 

Hi,

 

why does the vwim file contain both Mac and Windows installation files? I only need Windows installation files but I have to download 15GB and then delete the Mac stuff inside the .vwim before I upload it to my distribution servers... otherwise I would waste nearly 8GB of disk space on each of my ~20 distribution servers...

I think with VWX 24 you could choose what platform to download for...

 

Thx,

Jörn

Quote

why does the vwim file contain both Mac and Windows installation files?

 

Having platform-specific downloads would be helpful on the Mac side as well. We tried to create an installer package with the vwim and it failed unless we added a special --large-payload option (necessary if the payload is > 8 GiB)/

On 1/23/2025 at 11:02 AM, Jörn NM said:

I think with VWX 24 you could choose what platform to download for...

 

Yes. And this explains why the VWIM download is double the size of the MSI.

"Fun" fact: until U3 I was not able to cli.bat uninstall with the VWIM in my "install work" directory c:\VWIM.
I had to use the VWIM installed in C:\Program Files\Vectorworks 2025\Vectorworks 2025 Install Manager
With U3 it's vice versa: the VWIM in C:\Program Files\Vectorworks 2025\Vectorworks 2025 Install Manager only shows "Preparing for uninstall" (translated from German), the VWIM in c:\VWIM is able to uninstall via cli.bat

VW 2024 silent installation command used to work for us without specifying --LDF. For example, below command works fine for us in VW 2024.

 

"%~dp0resources\installer\Install Vectorworks2024.exe" --mode unattended --unattendedmodeui none --Serial G?????-??????-??????-?????? --installdir "C:\Program Files\Vectorworks 2024" --LDFChoice licenseID

 

 

For VW 2025, unusre if I read correclty about license key start with G does not require command to specify LDF file. 🤔

 

Our key starts with G but when I omit the --LDF parameter, it asked to specify one. 🥹

 

Below won't install
cli.bat install --installdir "C:\Program Files\Vectorworks 2025" --serial "G?????-??????-??????-??????" -i "C:\temp\vw2025\Update3.1.vwim" 

 

Below will install

cli.bat install --installdir "C:\Program Files\Vectorworks 2025" --serial "G?????-??????-??????-??????" -i "C:\temp\vw2025\Update3.1.vwim" --ldf "C:\temp\vw2025\??-??????.ldf"

 

Sorry if this another dupe question -- May I also ask if there is parameter for VW 2025 CLI silent install, please?

 

Thanks everyone

 

 

LDF seems to be downloaded automatically during install if there is internet access and no --ldf is provided.
We install our G-Series with this command:
c:\vwim\resources\cli.bat install --installdir "C:\Program Files\Vectorworks 2025" --serial "GXXXX-XXXXXX-XXXXXX-XXXXXX" -i "C:\vwim\install.vwim"

On 2/8/2025 at 4:38 AM, RMPSL said:

LDF seems to be downloaded automatically during install if there is internet access ......

 

Thanks

 

Let us say computer does have internet access but there are cyber and web security products on laptop potentially blocking certain traffic or file download.

 

To request our IT allowing the automatic LDF file download, what are the URLs to be allowed, please?

 

I can download from customer protal fine, just not 100% sure on source URLs of LDF that CLI.BAT downloads from.

 

Thanks again.

Per cli.js the URL is https://activation.vectorworks.net/get-license-description-file
 

Does anyone know of a way to install it silently without inputting a serial or providing an LDF?

I need to deploy this to about 50 people so getting them to put in their serial and/or provide an LDF isn't really an option

14 hours ago, Sean Charters said:

Does anyone know of a way to install it silently without inputting a serial or providing an LDF?

I need to deploy this to about 50 people[…]

 

Are you deploying to Mac, Windows, or both? Those of us who run macOS in University labs have been struggling with a mass-deployable solution for months, sharing ideas and strategies in the Mac Admins Slack. We do have solutions that work some of the time, but updating or reinstalling has been a real issue. Passing the serial using the command line installer is the method that worked previously, but 2025 seems to be a rewrite of the mechanism.

Edited March 28, 2025 by Anthony Reimer

trying to reply with something that worked for me, but kept getting "forbidden 403". i also can't attach anything.

On 3/28/2025 at 8:29 AM, Sean Charters said:

Does anyone know of a way to install it silently without inputting a serial or providing an LDF?

I need to deploy this to about 50 people so getting them to put in their serial and/or provide an LDF isn't really an option

 

There is no way to install this silently without the license or serial! (LDF is used during offline install), do this in Install.bat

 

@echo off

 

REM Get the full path to the current directory

set "baseDir=%~dp0"

 

REM Loop through any 7z* folders in the current directory

for /d %%F in ("%baseDir%7z*") do (

    if exist "%%F\resources\cli.bat" (

        "%%F\resources\cli.bat" install --installdir "C:\Program Files\Vectorworks 2025" --serial "XXXXXX-XXXXXX-XXXXXX-XXXXXX" -i "%baseDir%Update\Update5.vwim"

    )

)

 

Enter in a temp lic key for the first one by replacing XXXXXX-XXXXXX-XXXXXX-XXXXX in the install.bat, once you install this on your Test-VM it will create %APPDATA%\Nemetschek\Vectorworks\2025\XX-XXXXXX.ldf" you hang onto this and for the other 49 users copy this to their APPDATA DIR during install with the key then del after finish installing. The user is then prompted to signin using their creds!

 

Edited May 14, 2025 by DCS_Jarrad

On 5/14/2025 at 11:27 AM, DCS_Jarrad said:

 

@Tim Ardoin 

 

Hi Tim,

 

I just got off the phone with Troy over east in Australia and we're trying to sort out 2x things.

 

1. We really need Intune instructions for IT Professionals so we can deploy Vectorworks out to users just like in Sean Charters post.

 

2. I've ran into a development issue:

Please pass this feedback onto your developers as I'd just thought I'd let you know when installing Vectorworks 2025 30.5 x64 along with Update5.vwim and the LDF file causes something to go wrong in the registry and installs as DisplayVersion 30.0.0 and not 30.5.0 as you can see if below screenshot when I don't mention the LDF file which is odd?

 

 

 

Cheers

 

On 5/14/2025 at 11:27 AM, DCS_Jarrad said:

There is no way to install this silently without the license or serial! (LDF is used during offline install), do this in Install.bat

 

@echo off

 

REM Get the full path to the current directory

set "baseDir=%~dp0"

 

REM Loop through any 7z* folders in the current directory

for /d %%F in ("%baseDir%7z*") do (

    if exist "%%F\resources\cli.bat" (

        "%%F\resources\cli.bat" install --installdir "C:\Program Files\Vectorworks 2025" --serial "XXXXXX-XXXXXX-XXXXXX-XXXXXX" -i "%baseDir%Update\Update5.vwim"

    )

)

 

Enter in a temp lic key for the first one by replacing XXXXXX-XXXXXX-XXXXXX-XXXXX in the install.bat, once you install this on your Test-VM it will create %APPDATA%\Nemetschek\Vectorworks\2025\XX-XXXXXX.ldf" you hang onto this and for the other 49 users copy this to their APPDATA DIR during install with the key then del after finish installing. The user is then prompted to signin using their creds!

 

 

All (and specifically @DCS_Jarrad 

 

We don't currently have specific instructions for Intune or other management software beyond providing the command line interface in the initial post. That being said, this is something we are working to improve in several areas, including documentation and providing formats that work more naturally with that software. Unfortunately, for now that's all I can say regarding that.

 

I do see some confusion above regarding serial and LDF and when you need one or the other, or both that I'll try to clear up here. First, regarding serial or LDF. Serial is always needed, and has always been needed. In VW2024, an LDF was also required, and that continues as well. The installer uses the LDF to know what to actually install. Now, if you pass just the serial, VWIM will attempt to download the LDF automatically. If it's unable to (because activation.vectorworks.net is not accessible) it will fail. If this is an offline or restricted installation where providing access to activation.vectorworks.net is not possible, the LDF file must be provided explicitly with, for example, --ldf C:\tmp\XX-XXXXXX.ldf . The LDF can be downloaded from the user portal.

 

First, there are several possible combinations here: G (Site Protection) or E series. Online or offline. Roaming or local profiles. And I'm focusing just on site (managed) installs, not instances where every user does their own install.

 

First, G series is easy because it installs the serial to the system instead of the user. If activation.vectorworks.net is accessible, --ldf isn't needed. If not accessible, then it's needed. Roaming/Local shouldn't matter because again the serial goes to the system location, however for offline roaming, which we think is an obscure use-case, since Vectorworks can't download the LDF, an LDF would need to be copied to the user folder manually. Please let me know if this last case is something causing a lot of pain.

 

E series is where things get a little spicy because historically in the installer world, B and G series were written to be system-level, and E was considered user-level. I think that assumption was either wrong from the start or has grown less true over time (or both), but we have many sites with large numbers of E licenses. Because E series periodically requires activation, there should be no E series on offline computers so at least we can ignore that column, but because the installer puts the E series license only in the user's settings, roaming can be an issue. I'm considering having the installer put E series in the system location too (like G series works), maybe with an additional option to control it, but I'm not sure that's a good solution for cases where there are roaming users (users can log into any machine). I feel like maybe a utility is needed that takes a .csv of serials and usernames and can set up each user's registry or plist. Is that something that would be useful?

A few loose notes:

• It seems like there's some calls for platform-specific vwim files, so I can work on that.
• The above issue with displayVersion 30.0 has been fixed (VWIM rev >= 811378)
• @Anthony Reimer can you send ma a log and output if you're able, of a failed attempt? As of recent vwim versions, -o allows VWIM's log file to be specified, which was often a problem to find for Mac (typically Jamf) deployments.

Thanks all for the notes and feedback, and best regards,

Tim

 

Quote

@Anthony Reimer can you send ma a log and output if you're able, of a failed attempt? As of recent vwim versions, -o allows VWIM's log file to be specified, which was often a problem to find for Mac (typically Jamf) deployments.

 

@Tim Ardoin Yes, I have data from the Install.log for 3 consecutive failures and a single success from the same Mac computer. These particular installation attempts used a pkg I constructed that uses the download-vwim-on-the-fly method, where the shell command is run via a postinstall script in the pkg. The pkg is downloaded to the client Mac and run via Jamf Pro as root. Based on the logs, my best guess about the failures is that the 15 GB VWIM payload is not being downloaded within 10 minutes; the macOS Installer app appears to have a timeout for postinstall scripts when they exceed 10 minutes run time.

 

After some further testing, it appears that the timeouts occur when multiple computers are asking for the same download. (This is normal behaviour for a University computer lab, where the management system checks in every 15–20 minutes to do installs, so a number of computers requesting the VWIM content concurrently is very common.) So either my network admins throttle that kind of behaviour or the Nemetschek servers bog down just enough that the installs can't quite happen within the 10 minute window.

 

Although there is probably nothing in the logs that need to be sanitized, @Tim Ardoin please contact me privately and I will get you the Install.log excerpts that are relevant. (I can even provide the pkg installer.)

This does make an argument for Nemetschek building a macOS Pkg installer with the latest VWIM file included, as the bottleneck is the download. It would also reduce load on your server for labs like mine (~40 seats).