I'm sure this is incredibly self-evident and I apologize in advance.

I'm about to add a second Mac to my home office and I want to use both machines to share the seven tables comprising my dBase.

I'm running FM10.3 on Mac 10.5.7 and have a copy of FM11. I'm not sure I want to upgrade; I'm not convinced I'm missing ANYTHING in FM that I need.

Regardless, I remain confused about:

1) do I need two copies of FM?

2) if so, do they have to be the same version - i.e., could I run 11 on the new [faster] machine and 10.3 on the old? I want the old machine to have read/write capabilities.

I can't find anything on FM's site and everything I've seen so far -- in a couple of hours -- doesn't address the issue.

I hear SUGGESTIONS in a quite old post that the client machine should NOT have FM installed at all.

If that's the case, am I correct that it wouldn't matter WHAT version of FM I run on the new machine?

I appreciate any help available and hope I can return the favor.

thanks

Yes, you need two copies of FM (and they don't NEED to be the same versions. FM10 and FM11 are fine). This is called peer-to-peer and sounds like exactly what you need. Peer-to-peer puts the burden of backup on you (whereas FMS has builtin scheduled backups).

My experience (doing exactly the same thing) 10 on one machine, 11 on the other has been fine, except that with one file, when I made changes to the file (originally created with 10), and saved "A COPY" of it with FM 11, my Pc with 10 installed would no longer open that COPY. So, I guess it's safe to say that as long as you only save immediate changes in the original file, you are safe. Just dont "save a copy as" in 11, and expect it to work in 10.

thank you!

I think I must have misremembered the other post I read: I think I need to avoid having a copy of the DBase ITSELF on both machines?

Does this sound right?

You certainly do not want two copies of the database. You share the file btw two workstations using peer-to-peer sharing. See FMI KB Answer ID 5373 and FM's Help on Sharing and Hosting files.

again - THANK YOU!!!!!