VW 2010 will not work with Mac Power PC

[compusam 0]

As confirmed by tech support, VW 2010 (to be released September 15) will not function on a Power PC Mac. The software requires an Intel processor Mac. If you are currently using VW 2008 on a Power PC Mac, you have until Monday (September 14) to upgrade to VW 2009 which may be unavailable after the 14th.

Yikes!

[Kool Aid 0]

Excellent information!

My fairly educated guess is that 2009 will definitely not be available after the release of 2010.

Unless??But quite frankly, there's been a year to get VW 2009 and the writing has been on the wall for quite a long time.

Whether the 2009 upgrade makes financial & professional sense is another kettle of fish.

[CARMELHILL 5]

I think it made sense. It's been very stable and I like all the tweaks.

[Rostislav Maliar Kr?l' 0]

One would think that if you still own a Mac PPC that you could still buy 2009? In other News Releases, Nemetschek North America has said that it will be releasing a version to run on Snow Leopard later in the year. It may not be in their best interest to sell(not sure why) you 2009 but it seems like it would be advantageous to increase sales of Vectorworks for those who have not migrated to an Intel Mac yet.

No Guarantees but imagine if you call any of the inhouse sales folks they could confirm the purchase availability of 2009 for PPC version Mac's.

[islandmon 4]

And .. to think that NNA still enthusiastically supports WinXP... and probably will for the next 10 releases !

I know that this may sound strange to some .. but the PPC-G5 actually has advantages

when it comes to legacy 'carbon' code ... including all of the pre-2010 versions of VW.

Now with Intel processors OSX utilizes Rosetta to reach backward into the vault.

But...

In general, Rosetta does not run the following:

The Classic environment, and thus anything built for Mac OS 9 or below.

Code that inserts preferences into the System Preferences pane.

Applications that require a G5 processor.

Applications that require precise exception handling.

Kernel extensions, and applications that depend on them.

Bundled Java applications or Java applications with JNI libraries that can?t be translated.

For those professionals with a long history of Mac CAD projects loss of easy access

to their project archives represents a real cost factor !

Forcing "systemic upgrades" on to the MacPro Users in order to obtain access to a single CAD app. has ramifications.

After all... if we are to invest so much treasure into switching to a new platform standard,

shouldn't we at least consider researching all the other available CAD options ?

Additionally, since VW will still be running in the background on our numerous legacy MacOSX platforms,

switching to a CAD app which is designed & programmed specifically for 64bit Intel

would not be so painful on the new MacPro workstation running OSX +Windows 7.

Message ...why squander valuable resources using any CAD program that still uses mostly legacy code ?

Extinguishing the unworthy & unfortunate Mac PPC Users will be a watershed moment.

[brudgers 5]

NNA support for XP has something to do with:

1. Microsoft's long term support and maintenance for the operating system.

2. Windows software architecture for Vista and 'Sven being largely backwards compatible in so far as applications are concerned (due to 1. above).

3. XP running on two thirds of the world's computers.

4. Microsoft's long term vision of putting a computer on every desktop guiding the way in which they view their customers.

In my opinion, Snow Leopard's incompatibilities are a function of decisions by Apple, not developers like NNA. Apple chooses the hardware, provides the Operating System, and critically, provides the development tools for the platform.

The path forged by Snow Leopard places a great deal of legacy code on the road to obsolescence. It has generated a huge amount of overhead for NNA.

The interesting thing to me in all the talk about "Snow Leopard's shift to 64bits" is that this same claim was made about the Power PC when it was introduced more than a decade ago. Of course as Mac tablet rumors demonstrate, anything Apple pushes down the memory hole can be recycled eventually.

[David Bertrand 0]

I hope that Apple users won't eventually have to run Windows on their machines in order to use Vectorworks.

[Kool Aid 0]

Microsoft's long term vision

Hare Gates, hare Gates

Gates Gates, hare hare.

Hare Windows, hare Windows,

Windows Windows, hare hare.

[Andrew Bell@NV 0]

And .. to think that NNA still enthusiastically supports WinXP... and probably will for the next 10 releases !

You can still buy a new computer with Windows XP, and it is still the most widely used OS in the world. You haven't been able to buy a PowerPC Mac to run Vectorworks on since August 2006.

NNA doesn't want to drop support for older hardware and OSes that people are still using, but continuing to do so hamstrings the newer versions (as newer versions of tools and libraries aren't supported for the old OS), and takes lots of development and testing. At some point it's no longer resource-effective to do so, and Apple's decision to drop support with Snow Leopard is pretty much the death-knell for the PowerPC.

And as the owner of one of the latest Intel Mac Minis, I can tell you they run Vectorworks quite nicely.

[brudgers 5]

I hope that Apple users won't eventually have to run Windows on their machines in order to use Vectorworks.

I think NNA should focus on Vectorworks users rather than Apple users.

[Kool Aid 0]

Dropping the Windows-version would be a good start.

[lcda 5]

I hate vectorworks 2009 i love 2008 2009 looks more like autocad i can't even draw confortably

[Ray Libby 1]

What exactly has changed that you don't like?

[AN Design 0]

Don't get to edgy about the Mac or Apple

I began in 1987 w/ Blueprint 2.0

Later it became Minicad

and thereafter Vectorworks

It was around 1995 I believe that NNA

introduced VW for Windows

Just be thankful that NNA even supports the PC

It's roots began on the Mac