Vectorworks 2025 - no more full installer?

[Arliss Renwick]

I'm the IT Director at my firm (macOS.) For years, I've used the silent install method to keep our users up to date (via VW full installer DMG and custom shell scripts.) VW 2025 seems to only have the option to install via "Vectorworks 2025 Install Manager.app". For one thing, none of the end users will be able to use this (none of them have admin rights), and secondly, if it's up to me, it would mean manually installing VW dozens and dozens of times (and possibly not being able to install it at all on remote workstations.) Is there a way to have access to the full installer DMGs?

[Patrick BERNARD]

Hello everyone,

 

Same problem here.

I couldn't find any information on how to deploy this new version of Vectorworks silently.

This is a real problem !

It's incomprehensible that the deployment functions are not effective.

It's always an extremely time-consuming exercise to deploy this application and its licence.

[bjoerka]

Good topic.

It´s the same at our company here. Also none of the users have admin right. Not on Mac and neither on Windows.

A full installer image is really necessary.

[Tim Ardoin]

Hi all,

 

Silent/Command-Line/Offline installation of Vectorworks 2025 exists and is not too different from that of Vectorworks 2024.

 

Here is an article that gives the basic instructions of how to do it.

 

Informally here, in 2024, you downloaded the full installer, extracted the "inner" installer, and use a command line to launch and install it.

For 2025, you download the Install Manager, optionally use it (command line or GUI) to download a .vwim file (which is the installer payload) and then use a command line to install it.

 

I'm happy to work with you here or offline (DM me if you want) and help you get things going, and ideally I can also learn a few things about your processes to support any future improvements.

 

Best regards,

 

Tim

 

 

 

[bjoerka]

Thanks for answering and offering support, Tim !

 

[Arliss Renwick]

Good to know! Thanks for the quick response.

[dtheory]

Question still remains.. is there a .dmg available to download? 

 I do have some (limited) command line abilities, but would like to download a dmg for easy re-installs if necessary later.

[Tim Ardoin]

9 hours ago, dtheory said:

Question still remains.. is there a .dmg available to download? 

 I do have some (limited) command line abilities, but would like to download a dmg for easy re-installs if necessary later.

Not a DMG but you can do this without much trouble:

• Download the vwim file (with Vectorworks Install Manager).
• Make a folder with the Install Manager, and the .vwim file, and optionally an LDF if you want that, and really anything else you want to store in the dmg.
• Open Disk Utility and in the menu select File -> New Image -> Image From Folder
  • Select the folder with the vwim file and install manager app

 

If you're used to working with .dmg files, that should get you something familiar. I'd recommend just saving the .vwim files themselves though, as you can point the install manager to one (with Select Source) and install from it later, but I understand if you want the .dmg as a way to bundle things together.

 

I was thinking of adding some code to have the Install Manager auto-use a .vwim file if it's next to it on launch -- some technical issues on Windows (it's a self-extracting zip and I have to dig into the code for that to get the original file path) have delayed that, but it's still in the plans in a future update.

 

Best regards,

 

Tim

 

[dtheory]

Thanks @Tim Ardoin, very easy solution.

 

[rDesign]

16 hours ago, Tim Ardoin said:

Download the vwim file (with Vectorworks Install Manager).

 

I'm getting tripped up at the first step.

 

1. Open the Vw Install Manager;
2. Click on the 'hamburger' in the upper right corner and select 'Download';
3. Select the Target Version (Update 0 is the only option), select my Download folder location and click 'Open';
4. But when I click the blue Download button, nothing happens. It highlights to reflect my clicks, but nothing happens. There's no download progress bar, and nothing is being downloaded in my selected Download folder.
5. The only option that seems to work is to click Cancel to get out of that window. Which of course means -- no download.

 

 

What am I doing wrong? It shouldn't be this difficult.

 

Assuming I can get a downloaded .VWIM file, what is this 'LDF' that you mentioned? Seems like it would be easier for the end user to just provide a .DMG file. 

Edited September 11 by rDesign

[JuanP]

@rDesign Thank you for bringing this to our attention. I can replicate the issue. We’re checking it out and will get back to you soon.

[Tim Ardoin]

This is fixed now (you'll want to re-download the installer to get the latest version). Sorry about that. There was a bug that only showed up when there is just one update (the code wanted at least 2 updates -- which was the case in testing).

 

 

[Tim Ardoin]

Quote

...what is this 'LDF' that you mentioned? Seems like it would be easier for the end user to just provide a .DMG file. 

 

Normally, the Vectorworks Install Manager, and Vectorworks itself, automatically downloads the LDF file from our servers and you don't need to worry about it.

 

For an offline install, since it can't be downloaded, it is supplied directly by downloading it from the user portal (on a machine with internet access of course), and supplied during installation. This was also the case for Vectorworks 2024. Offline installation isn't too common, but we still support it.

 

[E|FA]

21 minutes ago, Tim Ardoin said:

it is supplied directly by downloading it from the user portal

https://customers.vectorworks.net/licenses download link to the right of the serial number

[mraffa]

Hello,

is there any Command Line option to Uninstall on MacOS?

I'd like to remove older versions after pushing the new one to the fleet.

 

Thanks

[Anthony Reimer]

This will definitely be substantially more challenging than the previous command line install. We had been able to automate the creation of a proper Apple .pkg installer using AutoPkg, which we then automatically uploaded to our MDM for deployment. (Essentially, we put the Vectorworks Install app into the pkg and had a postinstall script trigger the installation.) Using AutoPkg had the added benefit of checking for updates on a schedule, downloading the latest full installer when a Service Pack came out, and automatically building and upload a new pkg installer from that.

 

Based on the new system, I don't see a way to automate this. In order to get anything other than the stub installer, we have to use a manual process to download the .vwim file. I'm also guessing that the stub installer will be updated independently of the Vectorworks version, so we won't be able to reliably automate a version check to see when a new Service Pack for Vectorworks is available. Heck, `cli.sh download --ls` is currently showing Update0, U1B1, and Update1 being available on my test system. Has Service Pack 1 even been released? The GUI app doesn't think so. This sounds like a lot of manual work compared to what we had.

 

[Sidebar: This method changes the installer such that Vectorworks is owned by a user (rather than root/admin), even when you use the GUI. This is bad practice on macOS; the previous installer method did not have this issue.]

[dtheory]

Just a comment.. all this fiddling is really non-mac like. I can only speak for myself, as I do have decent technical abilities.

Downloading an  installer, and keeping the incremental updates, can be very helpful for customizing an installation to deal with 

bugs that inevitably occur on either the OS side or the VW side. ex> Maybe I'd want to  do an installation of VW on a new machine

that would be then updated to something less than the most recent version.. the new system makes this type of thing more of a pain.

[Carfax]

If you read the tech note on VW 2025 installs you will see that there is a way to do silent installs. It is referenced as an "offline (local) install".
Specifically:
"Note that alternately you can use the Install Manager GUI to easily download a .vwim file."
and
"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).

So what I do is download the necessary files and copy them using Apple Remote Desktop to the client computers /Users/Shared folder and use a bash script deployed via Apple Remote Desktop's Send Unix feature (as root).

The files you need are:
- Vectorworks 2025 Install Manager.app
- Update0.vwim (downloaded using the hamburger menu in the Install Manager.app)
- ldf file (downloaded from your Service Select - appears right near the 2025 Install Manager download)

Once these files are copied to the client computer /User/Shared I run this bash script (see attached) to do the silent install.
(Note that the Dock population part at the end requires you have installed dockutil )

 

VW_2025_Silent_Install.txt

[Anthony Reimer]

My testing of the silent install method for G Series shows that only the user who is assigned as the User ID can actually run the installed app successfully. For every other user (Admin or Standard), you are told, "No valid serial numbers have been found, please enter one now." I'll be contacting Vectorworks Support directly about this.

[RMPSL]

On 10/15/2024 at 6:47 PM, Anthony Reimer said:

My testing of the silent install method for G Series shows that only the user who is assigned as the User ID can actually run the installed app successfully. For every other user (Admin or Standard), you are told, "No valid serial numbers have been found, please enter one now." I'll be contacting Vectorworks Support directly about this.

This is not new behavior for us, at least on windows.
It's the reason why (IIRC since 2022) we have a step in our install script that imports the SN into the user's registry key.

Nevertheless, the new CLI installer seems quite unfinished, IMHO not nearly release quality software. And it looks like it wasn't really tested, because all the issues I found so far practically jump into your face.

It doesn't:
- create shortcuts
- create an entry in the program list
- register any method to uninstall 
- provide any method to uninstall
- create an installerlog.txt file

When I try to launch VWIM from c:\program files\Vectorworks 2025\Vectorworks Install Manager, I only get a black window.
I had the same problem with the 2024 updater app until they finally fixed that in U6.
I can launch VWIM from any other location, just not from within the install path.
 

[RMPSL]

On 9/12/2024 at 12:27 AM, Tim Ardoin said:

For an offline install, since it can't be downloaded, it is supplied directly by downloading it from the user portal (on a machine with internet access of course), and supplied during installation. This was also the case for Vectorworks 2024. Offline installation isn't too common, but we still support it.

 

No, this was not the case for 2024!
The 2024 installer was able to silently install from offline sources and at the same time download the ldf automatically from the servers:
\\server\share\Vectorworks 2024 U7\resources\installer\Install Vectorworks2024.exe --unattendedmodeui none --mode unattended --Serial xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx --installdir "C:\Program Files\Vectorworks 2024" --LDFChoice licenseID --sysUsername userName

I'd prefer for the cli installer to do the same, because for now we'll provide the same LDF for all of our subscription installs and provide the proper SN (different from the one in the ldf) later.
It doesn't seem to bother the activation that the user-provided SN doesn't match the SN in the LDF, but of course that's not exactly clean.

Having to add a method to copy a user-specific ldf to the user's profile\vectorworks 2025 directory between install and activation would complicate the process even more. And this is already the worst process of all the ~120 applications in our portfolio. Having to spend at least one work day just to implement this deployment is bonkers. Most of our apps are done in less than 30 minutes.

Edited October 28 by RMPSL