My company is getting ready to upgrade FileMaker (v6 for clients, v5.5 for server) after having used 5 (both Server and client) for many years. We've just upgraded all the Macs in the office to OSX so the Classic-only 5 is far too clunky now but we're not quite willing to take the plunge into the all-new 7 yet.

Can someone give me an idea of how easy/hard it'll be to update our FM5 software, including client and server, to FM6? Will our database files be ok? How about custom records we've made (layouts, fields, info, etc.)? Anything else we should know about?

Thanks,

m19

6 isn't that much different from 5.5. There are a few extra features, but no major changes. It runs on the same server as 5.5 as well.

We're currently running 5 though, not 5.5. Would it still be not much difference? (It's basically OSX compatibility we're going for here but I just want to make sure we don't hose our current FM setup in the process.)

(EDIT-) Durrr, I just noticed the 4>6 upgrade thread as well, and if that works flawlessly I'm guessing I shouldn't have any problems.

m19

There is no file conversion necessary between 5 and 6. There is from 2 to 3, and 4 to 5.

What you do have to realise though is that scripts that use FMP6-only steps like Show Custom Dialog won't work in FMP 5.5 and earlier. Scriptmaker just ignors the step and process the rest of the script, but obviously the script won't work properly.

Always develop with the oldest version.

For a year I had problems with FileMaker Server v.5 damaging files on Mac OS X. However this problem completely disappeared with v.5.5 which has been very stable.

I would agree with developing your solutions with FMPro v.5 if you want to keep backward compatiblity. However if all of your clients will be upgrading to v.6 then it should be fine to develop with v.6. In this way you can take advantage of its new features such as custom dialogue boxes and constrained or extended find steps.

I've been having problems with filemaker 6 doing weird things with relations and not matching related records from other files correctly with filemaker 6 on OSX panther. Also filemaker 6 can get a bit unstable if you dont shutdown your OSX mac nightly, but even then, My users have reported some general sillyness where things will work once, then the next time it wont, but for the preeceding several times afterwords they will. My solution is relatively simple and just uses goto related record calls and pulls info from other files with portatls and stuff.

our upgrade from 5 to 6 was almost un noticed by our users. The upgrade went exceptionally well. Upgrading from 6 to 7 however is very scary sounding and we have not yet done it.