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.
When doing a silent installation, there are five required arguments:
--mode unattended
This tells the installer to not wait for input.
--unattendedmodeui none
This tells the installer to not show any graphical interface.
--Serial <serial number>
This provides the serial number to the installer. Example --Serial EJXUSN-XXXXXX-XXXXXX-XXXXXX
--installdir <path to install>
This provides the path to install to the installer. Example: --installdir "C:\Program Files\Vectorworks 2023"
--LDFChoice <licenseID | ldf_local_file>
This tells the installer how to retrieve the License Description File.
--LDFChoice licenseID: This tells the installer to automatically download it during installation.
--LDFChoice ldf_local_file: This tells the installer you will provide the LDF file.
If you use ldf_local_file, you must also specify an additional argument:
--ldf <path>
This specifies the path and filename to a pre-downloaded LDF file.
In addition, on MacOS, the following argument is usually desired:
--sysUsername <username>
This tells the installer the username of the user who will be the "owner" of the files Vectorworks installs.
Without this argument, the superuser "root" will be the owner of these files. Typically, you want a named user to own these files.
These arguments are case sensitive and are preceded by a double dash (--).
Windows:
1) Using 7-zip, extract the large file called "dist" that's found next to the installer .exe.
2) The executable file you need to start the silent installer will be in this location:
dist~\resources\installer\
named: "Install Vectorworks2023.exe".
Open a command prompt window as an administrator, navigate to this folder, and use the following command:
START /W "" "Install Vectorworks2023.exe" --unattendedmodeui none --mode unattended --Serial EJXUSN-XXXXXX-XXXXXX-XXXXXX --installdir <install directory goes here, usually "C:\Program Files\Vectorworks 2023"> --LDFChoice licenseID
When the installation is finished, control will return to the command line. You can verify if it is complete by examining the file InstallerLog.txt to see if it says "Installation completed" at the end of the log. This file can be found in the installation directory.
MacOS:
You will need to first launch the installer .dmg file, which will open a volume called “Vectorworks 2023 Installer” in your finder.
From the Mac Terminal, type in the following command:
sudo /Volumes/Vectorworks\ 2023\ Installer/Vectorworks\ 2023\ Installer.app/Contents/Resources/installer/Install\ Vectorworks2023.app/Contents/MacOS/installbuilder.sh --unattendedmodeui none --mode unattended --Serial EJMUSN-XXXXXX-XXXXXX-XXXXXX --installdir <install directory goes here, usually "/Applications/Vectorworks 2023"> --sysUsername <the system user for which Vectorworks is being installed> --LDFChoice licenseID
When the installation is finished, control will return to the command line. You can verify if it is complete by examining the file InstallerLog.txt to see if it says "Installation completed" at the end of the log. This file can be found in the installation directory.
Note: When providing specific argument values, do not include the “<” or “>” characters.
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