Installation & update
About program installation and update, hardware, operating systems, setup, etc.

AC 13 updated hardware key

Anonymous
Not applicable
I am one of the unfortunate ones with a Power PC G5 desktop. If I upgrade the hardware key to use AC13 on my macbook pro, can I still use the key in my G5 to run the existing AC 12?

TIA
16 REPLIES 16
Gorazd
Booster
Yes you can. All the way down to AC7.
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Gorazd Rajh

AC 25, Ryzen 9 5900HS, 48 GB RAM, RTX 3080, Win 11
Anonymous
Not applicable
No you can't - at least I can't anyway.

I'm on an iMac with Snow Leopard (latest hotfix) AC 13 latest hotfix installed this morning.

Trying to start AC7, AC8 and AC 8.1 gets "No WIBU-KEY driver found. (501)" which might men something to the initiated but absolutely nothing to me. I am assuming that the key is not that far backwards compatible.

AC11, 12 and 13 work fine, I don't know if 10 works as my install disk is faulty and won't install.

Can't try 9 as the install disk keeps looking for a directory and won't let you select one - any clues anybody.

I doubt if 6.5 will work but I can't try it as I was on Windows at the time and only have a Windows disk, similarly my 4.55 disks are 3.5" windows floppies.

I need to resurrect a project which I think I started in 4.55 and finished in 6.5 so 7 seems to be the best option.

Any ideas really appreciated.

Chris Dennehy
Karl Ottenstein
Moderator
Yes you can. The WIBU key doesn't care what machine it is plugged into - PPC Mac, Intel Mac, Windows. A license for one version works with all prior versions.

But, the WIBU driver and which OS you are running is another story.

See:
http://www.graphisoft.com/support/archicad/downloads/WIBU.html

I'm running AC 9 through 13 on my Snow Leopard machine.

HTH,
Karl
One of the forum moderators
AC 27 USA and earlier   •   macOS Ventura 13.6.6, MacBook Pro M2 Max 12CPU/30GPU cores, 32GB
Karl Ottenstein
Moderator
Also, Chris, if you are on an Intel Mac, you cannot install the earlier versions as the installer requires a PPC machine. If you have a PPC Mac available, install there, and then copy the Applications folder entry over to your Intel machine. The Intel version of AC 10 is a download - it was the first version of AC native to Intel Macs.

Cheers,
Karl
One of the forum moderators
AC 27 USA and earlier   •   macOS Ventura 13.6.6, MacBook Pro M2 Max 12CPU/30GPU cores, 32GB
Anonymous
Not applicable
Thanks Karl,

Long time no hear but then I haven't been visiting the forum much.

Unfortunately it's not working - I downloaded and installed v5.30 for Mac OSX 10.6 Snow Leopard and am still getting the same error reading.

Being suspicious I took the key from the usb port on my keyboard and inserted it directly into the computer - made no difference.

V7 , 8 and 8.1 installed quite happily.

I also downloaded WkMac.lib file for luck and tried inserting it into the CFMSupport folder which refused it entry on the grounds that the CFMSupport folder cannot be modified.

Plan B anybody

CD
Anonymous
Not applicable
Well still no luck starting 7, 8, 8.1 and 9 under Snow Leopard with the new Key code loaded, just wondering there when Karl said about those releases being for the PPC might prevent them from seeing the key on an Intel but they all installed with no problem, so on to plan B.

Plan B

Moved all jobs unlikely to see the light of day again onto 2 external drives ie made 2 copies - I believe in Murphy's law, it also made sufficient room on the HDD.

Downloaded and updated vmware fusion - update worked no problem but a bit slow, XP still worked after the upgrade.

Updated it with all windows fixes for XP.

Installed all ArchiCAD releases v6 to v10 on the virtual machine.

Downloaded and installed WIBU 5.20 for windows made sure that the key was connected to the virtual machine, crossed fingers and hit the go button for v7 - worked.

and so does 8, 8.1, 9 and 10.

Not a glug out of 6 and 6.5 but I suppose that was hoping for too much and anyway I think they used the old serial key.

Big surprise after downloading and installing the windows WIBU software in the virtual machine the key still works on the Mac, I fully expected the key drivers to be scrambled, so now still have 11, 12 and 13 working on the Mac.

Not ideal splitting the action but if it gets the job done what harm.

Well it helps to pass the time.
Ralph Wessel
Mentor
Chris wrote:
Well still no luck starting 7, 8, 8.1 and 9 under Snow Leopard
Odd - I'm have everything from 7 to 13 running under Snow Leopard. No apparent problems at all.
Ralph Wessel BArch
Rod Jurich
Contributor
Chris, like Ralph I have no problem either.
Long shot when you installed Snow Leo did you also install Rosetta?
Rod Jurich
AC4.55 - AC14 INT (4204) |  | OBJECTiVE |
Anonymous
Not applicable
Ralph wrote:
Chris wrote:
Well still no luck starting 7, 8, 8.1 and 9 under Snow Leopard
Odd - I'm have everything from 7 to 13 running under Snow Leopard. No apparent problems at all.
Never said it wasn't odd but stranger things have happened.

Now if somebody actually knew what:

"No WIBU KEY Driver found (501)"

Actually meant when the said driver can be found by 11, 12 and 13, I might get somewhere.