I am new to this board and hope I am posting properly. Does anyone know if it is possible to load 2 versions of FM on the same computer? I maintain an older version for a client, and now have another client who wants me to do the same - but with a current version.

Many thanks

Hi Sue,

Welcome to the forums!

I've moved your topic to a more appropriate place.

In the meantime, if you mean FileMaker 8, and 7 and 5 on the same machine -- The answer is yes, but when opening you'd have to choose the specific version you wanted to open with.

Hi Sue, and welcome to the Forum,

I currently have 6, 7, 8, and 8.5 on my IBook g4 (OS X) all of them are opened. Prior to this, using OS 9, I have had 4, 5, and 6 opened at the same time without problem.

HTH

Lee

Thank You Genx & Lee! Is there an option when loading the new version that prevents replacing the former version?

Each install ignors other version and other copies of the same version, and is a new install. FileMaker will not allow you to have more than one copy of a Serial Number open on a machine or network, so you will need to have a different serial number for each copy of the any one version in order to open more than one of the same version.

Updates will automatically find the versions to be updated. (i.e. one two three, etc. and you can direct it to the different drives as you go. For example, I usually have two copies of 8.x.x Advance open when I'm developing, it speeds things up when I'm upgrading a solution, and FileMaker doesn't have any problem with this, as I own multiple copies of the versions.

So, if I haven't confused you by now, I'll sum up in saying you can have multiple copies of FileMaker open and running on the same machine and network just as long as the serial numbers are different. .

Lee

Edited December 2, 200619 yr by Guest
clean up

I usually have two copies of 8.x.x Advance open when i'm developing

... Seriously?

Sure, doesn't everyone? LOL

I have done this with 8. Before 8 Advance there wasn't much of an advantage because you couldn't copy Fields, TOs, Scripts, etc.

Lee

Edited December 2, 200619 yr by Guest

You can have every version ever created on the same machine. How many you can run simultaneously is another question. The Mac is apparently more amenable to letting you concurrently run a zillion different version/copies of "FileMaker Pro" — Windows, which oddly enough will generally let you launch the very same app (not another copy but literally the same .exe file) a second, third, etc time, doesn't seem very fond of letting you launch markedly different .exe's that have the same name.

Meanwhile, back at the Mac, you're going to lose web-sharing and probably fmnet file sharing very early on, for any version except the first one to seize the ports. And I've seen the icons get confused (FileMaker 6 with a FileMaker 8 blue icon, even once with a FileMaker 3 icon when I had Fm3 running in Classic at the same time), so it's real easy to get bewildered when trying to swap apps.

This is quite interesting.

I have 6/7a/8a/8.5a on my machine but never considered running 2 copies.

I have avoided putting email plugins (like smtpit and popit in my solution because it locks up the whole solution when importing the email and attachment (which could be any size and take any amount of time) ... its also not cost effective to have another machine to run this ...

but if it was on the same machine as a user thats a different matter. hmmmmmmm

The performance would be terrorible im sure but it may be worth it.

I have avoided putting email plugins (like smtpit and popit in my solution because it locks up the whole solution when importing the email and attachment (which could be any size and take any amount of time) ... its also not cost effective to have another machine to run this ...

... They have functions that can check attachment sizes before downloading. You could always just limit it to 1mb or something....

Another question worth broaching...

has anyone on a Mac (intel) tried running 2 versions one in osx and one in windows at the same time using virtualisation software.

I would be interested to know.

if they have different IPs could you run server and a client at the same time.

I know this is a bad idea in general ... but may be good in a one computer developement environment for testing especially if you can run server and 2 clients on the same machine.

Hi Genx ... good to know .. i have not used these plugins since v6

Well, i've been planning on trying mac virtualization software for a while, will hopefully be buying some this coming week -- if i remember, (which i probably will) i'll check and let you know.

... Doesn't work on Windows. It will only run one version of the same exe... i.e. FileMaker Pro Advanced 8 or 8.5 both have the same process name "FileMaker Pro Advanced", if you try to open the other one, it simply brings the running exe to front instead of starting another process... Oh well.