Advice on upgrading?

[JohnRudnicki]

I have been a long time MC user and have been happily going along using MC14. From the comments I have read, there is no incentive to move up to the Primes (can one even upgrade - I could not find any info on PTC site about upgrading from MC 14). I have read good comments about MC15 but ones about running with Windows 7. Advice? Suggestions?

[Werner_E]

I am not a friend of Prime and IMHO Mathcad 15 is the best version since version 11. In fact MC15 is a simple advancement of MC14 - MC15 F000 was first meant being MC14 M040 but then marketing changed its mind.

There is a problem with Win7 regarding 3D-plots (its the same with MC14 I think) which can be solved using different methods (uncheck border, reduce colordepth, ...). The problem (its is that the 3Dplot won't show at all) seems to be harder to deal with under Win8.

I don't know if there is an upgrade path from MC14 to MC15 (without Prime).

If you buy (or upgrade to?) Prime you get a copy of MC15 for free (they will share the same license file).

You may have a look what bugs were fixed and what changes were made after MC14 M020 by looking at the release notes of MC14 M035 here

http://www.ptc.com/WCMS/files/98347/en/Mathcad_14_M035_RELNOTES.HTM

and at the ReadMeFirst of Mathcad15 M020 which I attach here.

[VladimirN]

Hi,

You can try Mathcas Prime Express for testing any time: http://www.ptc.com/product/mathcad/free-trial/

[Werner_E]

I am not sure but for a long term user reuseability of older sheets is usually a big issue.

He won't be able to test which of his older sheets still a re working without a full installation of the current MC15. Of course he could install the 15day trial of MC15. He must save his MC14 license file first, install MC15 and after the 30days he would have to uninstall MC15, install MC14, put in place the saved license file and hope that all is still working as it should. What a hassle!

[IRstuff]

I don't know that the latter is really necessary. I'n running both M14 and M15 concurrently in W7.

TTFN

[Werner_E]

I'n running both M14 and M15 concurrently in W7.

Native? Without running one in a VM? Thats amazing.

I know for sure that the installation of Mathcad15 uninstalls a Mathcad14 installation automatically and if you forgot to save your license file its gone.

[IRstuff]

I do seem to recall installing M15 first, though.

TTFN

[Werner_E]

I do seem to recall installing M15 first, though.

Ah, that will be an explanation, but why did you do that? I never tried this and I guess I would not recommend it. MC15 basically Is a version 14 which is called 15 just for marketing reasons. So I would fear that installing a lower version may (even if installed in different directories) overwrite some system files with older versions.

I would also have guessed that MC14 would realize that a newer version is already installed and refuses to install, but as your installation shows this seems not to be the case.

So what will happen if you install the next maintainance release of MC15 due to the end of this year? Will it kill your MC14 installation or not?

[IRstuff]

I guess I'll cross that bridge when I get to it.

TTFN

[Werner_E]

So just be prepared and save your MC14 license file in case you want to use it again on the same machine.

[IRstuff]

Oh, yeah, I've got a folder chock full of license files.

TTFN

[Werner_E]

As far as I remember some licenses of Mathcad 14 were bound to the MAC adress of a NIC, but others were bound to the 8 character volume serial number of the primary hard disk. To be able to get MC14 working again after a hard disk change or reformat of the existing disk, you would not need your license file backed up but also know this volume serial number. After formatting the HD you would have to use a third party tool to set the volume serial number to the one it was before. Of course the procedure was nowhere explained, the issue not even mentioned in the docs.

I had some fun time reactivating Mathcad on a couple of machines after a routinely change of the hard drive.