Jump to content

  • Command Line Installation of Vectorworks 2026

    Tim Ardoin

    By Tim Ardoin

    NOTE: This article is intended for IT professionals with an understanding of the command line/terminal interface. 
     

    Legacy (VWIM Command Line):

     

    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. We also provide a native .msi package on Windows and .pkg package on MacOS. We suggest and expect you will want to use the native packages, and that is what this document explains. For the Install Manager's command line interface, please reference the Command Line Installation of Vectorworks 2025 document, as the interface is unchanged.

     

    MSI (Windows):

     

    The MSI is available in the Customer Portal downloads section or by choosing "Advanced" from the VWIM triple bar menu. It is provided as a zip file. The zip file contains the msi file itself, .cab files that contain the payload, a productcode.txt file, and finally an "install.bat" file that can simplify and/or serve as a base for your install process.

     

    To install Vectorworks, a few arguments must be passed to the MSI to provide the serial, LDF (License Description File), and Installation Directory. The install.bat file clarifies and checks these options, as well as checking for proper privileges and creating a log file.

     

    The usage of install.bat is: 

    install.bat "Vectorworks2026.msi" "C:\Program Files\Vectorworks 2026" "ABCDDE-XXXXXX-XXXXXX-LLLLLL" "c:\mytemp\DD-LLLLLL.ldf" "msiLog.txt"

     

    The parameters are, in order:

    • The path and filename of the .msi file (not the zip).
    • The install directory
    • The serial number
    • An LDF file, previously downloaded
      • This can be an empty string ( "" ) . If so, the MSI will attempt to fetch the LDF file from our servers based on the serial number. If successful, that fetched LDF will be used.
    • A path and filename to a log file, useful to diagnose problems. Please note that this file may contain the serial number as msiexec will log it.

     

    The batch file runs msiexec on the msi, passing the requested parameters. It's possible to use msiexec directly, and the .bat file can be used as a reference for how to do this.

    Also in the batch file are instructions for doing a command-line uninstall.

     

    PKG (MacOS):

     

    On mac, a .pkg file is provided. This is available by clicking "Advanced" from the triple bar menu in the Install Manager. This file requires a configuration .plist file placed next to it, so it can retrieve the serial number, a path to the LDF file, and an optional list of users for which to store serial number information. The plist file must be named vw2026.plist, and must be located next to the .pkg file. Here is a sample plist file:

      

    <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>users</key>
    <array>
        <dict>
            <key>username</key>
            <string>user1</string>
            <key>serial</key>
            <string>EMXDDM-XXXXXX-XXXXXX-LLLLLL</string>
        </dict>
    </array>
    <key>serial</key>
    <string>EMXDDM-XXXXXX-XXXXXX-LLLLLL</string>
    <key>ldf</key>
    <string>/tmp/DD-LLLLLL.ldf</string>
</dict>
</plist>

     

    The "users" array is optional and will cause the postinstall script in the pkg to create the licensing plists and copy the LDF into a user folder for each entry. The outer "serial" will be copied to the system location /Library/Preferences. Additionally, the outer "serial" and "ldf" keys are used internally to determine which features of Vectorworks to install.

     

    Note that user1, the serial numbers, and the LDF name should be customized to match your items.


    Once the plist file is created, the following command can be used to install the pkg: 

    sudo installer -pkg ./Vectorworks2026.pkg -target /Applications

     

    It is currently required that Vectorworks installed via a pkg is installed to /Applications/Vectorworks 2026/.

     

    Note that once installed, MacOS remembers this install. To install a second time (for example if you delete the install folder), you must first tell macOS to forget it as follows:
      

    sudo pkgutil --forget net.nemetschek.vectorworks.installer

     

     


      Report Article
    Go to articles Installation

    User Feedback


    RMPSL

    Wow! Thanks for embracing MSI! 🙂
    I know it has been an option for a while now, but VWIM worked better for us.
    I'll do my deployment testing tomorrow. Fingers crossed. 🙂

    • Like 1
    Link to comment
    RMPSL

    So, a quick update / feedback:
    - I had to add ALLUSERS=1 to the command line in order to get it to reliably add the shortcut to the start menu and register in control panel/programs&features

    - How are we supposed to install the Viewer?
    The install.bat says "The viewer batch doesn't take serial or ldfFile", but there is no "viewer batch", and setting SERIAL="VIEWER" (because VWIM install works with that) or leaving it empty (tried both with no serial param and SERIAL=""), doesn't work.

    Link to comment
    • Vectorworks, Inc Employee
    Tim Ardoin
    • Vectorworks, Inc Employee

    Hi @RMPSL,

    Thanks for the feedback and the tip about ALLUSERS. I'll look into that and amend the above post with it when I understand better how it affects things.

     

    Can you clarify what you mean by "VWIM worked better for us"? Do you mean better than MSI, or better in general than for some other customers? Or do you mean it worked better than the (somewhat experimental/non-officially supported) MSI that Computerworks had for awhile?

     

    Regarding the viewer - there is a separate MSI for this. Because of how MSI works and because a common use case is to have both the Viewer and the Full install installed in parallel, a separate Viewer MSI was required. I'll do some work to see if I can figure out what state that is and where to get it. Unfortunately the current state of being able to download these is a little bit in flux currently. More soon.

    • Like 1
    Link to comment
    RMPSL

    VWIM worked better for us than the MSI, when I tried it last time.
    Now it's the other way around, MSI makes our deployment much simpler.

    Viewer: thank's for the info!

    Link to comment
    Benjamin K

    @Tim Ardoin Will the macOS PKG also be available for German users? Or is this only available in English? Comuterworks told me that the only way to install 2026 in silent mode is the cli way. They don't know anything about an PKG installer. 

    Link to comment
    Vaughn

    Vectorworks 2026 package notes : 


    When no user is specified in the vw2026.plist file, no serial number preference is written anywhere.  

     

    When spcifying a user in the plist file, the serial number is written to <userhome>/Library/Preferences/net.nemetschek.vectorworks.license.2026.plist  

     

    Specifying "root" as a user results in the serial number being written to /Library/Preferences.  

     

    In all cases, launching VW results in a message that no valid serial numbers have been found.

     

    Contents of net.nemetschek.vectorworks.license.2026.plist
    <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
    <!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
    <plist version="1.0">
    <dict>
        <key>NNA User License</key>
        <string>EMXDDM-XXXXXX-XXXXXX-LLLLLL</string>
    </dict>
    </plist>

     

    I was unable to find any combination where the package installer correctly wrote the serial number in a way that allowed Vectorworks to recognize it.

     

     

    Installing manually with the Install Manager app I see that the installer writes the serial number to <userhome>/Library/Preferences/net.nemetschek.vectorworks.2026.plist  Note that is a different domain than the pkg installer

     

    Contents of net.nemetschek.vectorworks.2026.plist :
    <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
    <!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
    <plist version="1.0">
    <dict>
        <key>NNA Licenses</key>
        <array>
            <string>EMXDDM-XXXXXX-XXXXXX-LLLLLL</string>
        </array>
    </dict>
    </plist>

     

    In addition to the domain being different, I notice that the key is different "NNA Licenses" vs "NNA User License"

     

     

    To get this all working, I just deploy a correct net.nemetschek.vectorworks.2026.plist to /Library/Preferences post installation.  I am already deploying a LoginDialog.xml to point to our license server, so it's not much extra work to also deploy the serial number preference.  I would have been nice to have accurate documentation to save me some work.  I hope writing this up helps others.

    Link to comment
    BrianOK

    I'm trying to package this software, so I can use it with Intune. So installing silently requires a license key, according to this article.

    I'm not the one purchasing licenses for my company, so I don't know the structure of your license plans. But it's not very packaging friendly to have to specify a license key, since each of our users have a unique license key. Or is there some other license plan, where all the companys users use the sam license key?

    Link to comment
    mrtep

    I am a tech for a high school and we have a 50 seat lab license. Is there a way to put in the license server IP at installation for all users so students won't have to with copying the LoginDialog.xml to the users appdata after they have logged in? I do not want the students have the IP address. I can't see any way to do this. I tried opening vectorworks logged in as a student and it still asked for the IP even though I put it in after I installed the software as an admin.

    Link to comment
    RMPSL
    On 12/2/2025 at 2:49 PM, BrianOK said:

    I'm trying to package this software, so I can use it with Intune. So installing silently requires a license key, according to this article.

    I'm not the one purchasing licenses for my company, so I don't know the structure of your license plans. But it's not very packaging friendly to have to specify a license key, since each of our users have a unique license key. Or is there some other license plan, where all the companys users use the sam license key?

    I don't know if this is possible with Intune (we use Baramundi), but we use one of our subscription serials for the installer and deploy the user's serial to the registry key afterwards.
    HKCU:\Software\Nemetschek\Vectorworks 31\Registration
    REG_SZ "User Serial Number"

    If you omit adding their serial into their registry, VWX will ask for the serial at first start (because the serial used during installation is written to the key of the install user only).

    Link to comment
    RMPSL
    On 12/8/2025 at 4:41 PM, mrtep said:

    I am a tech for a high school and we have a 50 seat lab license. Is there a way to put in the license server IP at installation for all users so students won't have to with copying the LoginDialog.xml to the users appdata after they have logged in? I do not want the students have the IP address. I can't see any way to do this. I tried opening vectorworks logged in as a student and it still asked for the IP even though I put it in after I installed the software as an admin.

    Students can look up the IP by re-enabling the login dialog or simply looking at the contents of the XML anyways, but you don't need to copy the xml to the students appdata folder.

    You can deploy it to C:\Program Files\Vectorworks 2026\Einstellungen\SeriesG (or the respective folder for your localization).
     

    Link to comment
    peter.verhagen

    Hi Team!
    Is there any further updates to the MSI installer for Viewer? I have found the 'deployment package' in the Vectorworks portal, but this seems to only be for full VWX

    • Like 1
    Link to comment
    mhuston

     

    • Why is this product so hard to support in computer labs, every year it's a difficult to deploy.
    • I just keep getting errors, and the official instruction on your web site are for 2025.
    • I will keep reading and tinkering, but compared to almost any other product this takes too much admin time.
    Link to comment
    mhuston

    Ok... maybe I am just a little slow.. .. but I would really like clear step by step guide.

    I have seat 50 licence, I want out deploy it with JAMF this year.. (InTune next year...)
    I used an AutoPkg recipe last year, and it magically worked, in the past years I used "composer"

    I have a server, I can run the GUI package and install it without too much difficulty on one computer. 

    Now I want to deploy the it to 50 computers silently, please point me to a step by step guide, with clear explanation; because the above steps gives me this error.

    % sudo installer -pkg ./Vectorworks2026.pkg -target /Applications

    installer: Package name is Vectorworks2026

    installer: Installing at base path /

    installer: The install failed. (The Installer encountered an error that caused the installation to fail. Contact the software manufacturer for assistance. An error occurred while running scripts from the package “Vectorworks2026.pkg”.)

    Link to comment
    RMPSL
    On 1/21/2026 at 2:52 AM, peter.verhagen said:

    Hi Team!
    Is there any further updates to the MSI installer for Viewer? I have found the 'deployment package' in the Vectorworks portal, but this seems to only be for full VWX

    @Tim Ardoin Any news on that?

    Link to comment


    Join the conversation

    You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
    Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

    Guest
    Add a comment...

    ×   Pasted as rich text.   Restore formatting

      Only 75 emoji are allowed.

    ×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

    ×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

    ×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

    ×

×
×
  • Create New...