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C
CJR4-Participant
4-Participant
May 7, 2026
Question

Old versions and licencing

  • May 7, 2026
  • 4 replies
  • 84 views

I am a long time user of pre-Prime MathCad and have until recently been using MathCad14. I had a quick test drive of Prime when it was first launched and hated it. 

For reasons beyond my control, I have had to do a fresh re-installation of Windows 11 Pro. I have reinstalled MathCad but now I am unable to register its licence (“Error 403 - Forbidden”).

Can anyone confirm if I should be able to continue using my old MathCad? Or has the licensing for this been discontinued? 

4 replies

W
Werner_E25-Diamond I
25-Diamond I
May 7, 2026

You may be interested in

https://community.ptc.com/mathcad%2Dtips%2D391/official%2Dptc%2Dmathcad%2D15%2Dand%2Dprime%2D1%2D6%2Dend%2Dof%2Dsale%2Dannouncement%2D131142

    C
    CJR4-ParticipantAuthor
    4-Participant
    May 11, 2026

    Many thanks. I hit a brick wall with the addresses and links given out by PTC. When I finally got to a support site, they said I had to upgrade to get support. 

    I’m giving the Prime 12 free trial a tryout, and it looks like it will work for me, but can’t really justify the annual fee. I used to pay less than that to “buy” an edition of MathCad that would serve for many years.  

      L
      Labbe4-Participant
      4-Participant
      May 13, 2026

      Hi, I’ve the same problem with MathCad 15. I’ve changed the motherboard of my PC, and of course the licence is no longer valid. In the past the best way was to transfer the licence to fhe new host ID. But PTC does not accept to do that anymore, and my licence is no longer viewable on their site. Fortunately I’ve also a Mathcad Prime licence, but the old .xmcd files cannot be converted to .mcdx readable by Mathcad Prime without an installation of Mathcad 15. Mathcad Prime can run without licence, as Mathcad Express which is limited a little bit but sufficent in many cases. The only way to save old jobs (.mcd and .xmcd) is to get the help of somebody having both Mathcad 15 and Prime installed. (maybe it’s also valid with Mathcad 14, I don’t know).

      That the way I’m looking now. Good luck

        DJNewman
        DJNewman18-Opal
        18-Opal
        May 13, 2026

        The good news is that starting in or around Mathcad Prime 7, you don’t need Mathcad 15 installed to run the xmcd to mcdx worksheet converter in Mathcad Prime. Starting in Prime 8, the converter also allows you to convert your xmcd files to HTML, so you can see exactly how they looked without needing Mathcad 15.

        The bad news is that, from what it sounds like, you have an old, off-support perpetual licence of Mathcad Prime (older than when Prime 7 was first available, 2021) that doesn’t entitle you to upgrade to a newer version at no additional cost. But you could install the converter with a fresh installation of the 30-day Mathcad Prime trial and go from there.

        PTC Marketer for Creo and Mathcad. I run their YouTube channels, some Creo campaigns, and all Mathcad campaigns and communications.
        L
        Labbe4-Participant
        4-Participant
        May 13, 2026

        Thanks for your informations. My licence is for Mathcad prime 3.1, which I appreciate very much. Will it be able to read the .xmcd files converted by the 30-day Mathcad Prime trial, which I suppose relies on a more recent version of Prime

          DJNewman
          DJNewman18-Opal
          18-Opal
          May 13, 2026

          The trial is always on the latest version of Prime (currently 12.0.0.1 as of yesterday), and the converter (which is also versioned) converts into whatever version of Prime was used. Unfortunately, older Mathcad Prime versions aren’t able to open worksheets made in newer versions.

          PTC Marketer for Creo and Mathcad. I run their YouTube channels, some Creo campaigns, and all Mathcad campaigns and communications.
          L
          Labbe4-Participant
          4-Participant
          May 13, 2026

          I got the trial version of Mathcad Prime ( ver 12). Well it converts .xmcd files to .mcdx with issues. Mathcad Prime 3.1 is unable to open these files. The only way to get infos is to open the converted file with the trial version. The result is not good, but it may be a support to manualy create a new file from Prime 3.1 (my licence). PTC is not cooperative with old customers. The cost of a new licence for Mathcad 12 is far too high for my business.

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