Vectorworks Operating System Compatibility List

Thanks Jim....very helpful! This is good news for me. I have two mac mini computers one with Snow Leopard  and the other with High Sierra. Vectorworks 2011 would work on Snow Leopard. 

Last updated on June 24, 2019.

Last updated on October 9, 2019.

This chart is very helpful in my considering whether to invest in a new Mac or not and all of it's associated costs.   I am wondering why all versions of Vectorworks is supported by Windows 10, but only the two latest versions of VW for mac (2019, 2020) will work with Catalina.  I have VW 2018 - so it looks like I will be keeping my old computer and avoid upgrading to Catalina. :(

The main reason for the difference in compatibility is a difference in attitude between Apple and Microsoft. Microsoft makes backward compatibility an absolute priority. That means that newer versions of Windows will support older versions of Vectorworks.

 

Apple on the other hand cares less about backward compatibility and more about moving the Mac platform forward. From version to version of the operating system them keep making changes that break older versions of Vectorworks. Vectorworks has decided that they are better off spending the engineering resources on making VW better rather than making older versions run on newer versions of the Mac OS. Especially as they are advocating for users to subscribe to Service Select where the newer versions are included in the annual subscription.

 

Apples changes over the last couple of years have been especially bad about breaking older software.

That's very helpful.  Can't say that I am a big fan of planned obsolescence but it sounds like par for the course when working with Macs.  Thanks Pat!

I don't think it is so much a case of planned obsolescence as it is a case of we want to go in this direction and if it breaks something then oh well on Apple's part.

Does anyone know for certain if VectorWoks Architect 2011 will run on Windows 10?

Edited February 19, 2020 by j.g.l

18 hours ago, j.g.l said:

VectorWoks Architect 2011 will run on Windows 10?

It is not supported.

 

See legacy OS compatibility list:

 

As an experiment, I was able to run Vectorworks 2015 under Mac OS X 10.14.6, Mojave.

Launch time was a bit painful, but it was able to run. I have a client who still uses it, so I was curious.

 

I don't think I'd want to rely on it a a daily basis, though.

 

VW 2019 and VW 2020 have been running fine, as expected.

Last updated on September 16th, 2020.

As it is now November 14 2020 and MacOS 11 has been released will VWX 2021 work on Big Sur properly now?

 

 

On 11/28/2019 at 10:25 PM, Pat Stanford said:

Apple on the other hand cares less about backward compatibility and more about moving the Mac platform forward. From version to version of the operating system them keep making changes that break older versions of Vectorworks. Vectorworks has decided that they are better off spending the engineering resources on making VW better rather than making older versions run on newer versions of the Mac OS. Especially as they are advocating for users to subscribe to Service Select where the newer versions are included in the annual subscription.

I really feel that there should be some joint responsibility here.  It can be rocket science doing a bit of tweaking to older versions of VWX to maintain some program longevity, instead of just ignoring it and forcing paid upgrades.  

2019 (only 2 years old!) is great but now redundant if you want to move on to the latest operating system & hardware.  That does not demonstrate a company that wants to support their customer base.

Thank you for the information. I will update Vectorworks to 2020. That really explains a lot.

When Nemetsheck declares an older version of VW is not compatible with certain more recent Mac OS versions, does that mean that it will not work or run at all ?   ... or ... does that mean that it just doesn't run very well ?     Is it possible to figure out what portions of the older VW program won't work at all ?

@domer1322When the older version is deemed incompatible, it can be for a variety of reasons. In many cases, that version will not launch at all, or will cause such issues that its use is almost impossible. In other cases, there may be major tools or workflows that do not work. We say incompatible because it does not meet the standards that are acceptable for our software to run on an operating system and because it will not be updated in the future if any issues arise with that version on the incompatible operating system. In my experience, I have found that some users get lucky and are able to successfully launch a version of the software on an unsupported operating system, but it is almost always met with immediate performance and stability issues. 

Last updated September 15th, 2021.