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Mathcad and 64-bit Windows

Alani
1-Newbie

Mathcad and 64-bit Windows

Hey there,

I'm having hardship in finding any version of MATHCAD software that can run on 64-bit windows. Perhaps, I'm just from the old school and my expertise came through working with many engineering companies where MATHCAD was the tool number one for design, and therefore, I had to learn it.

Now, I'm attending the graduate school and it looks none of my new classmates have heard of MATHCAD! The trend speaks MATLAB! The university is vehemently touting this software from MathWorks. They made MATLAB free, free online training, free tutorials, free on-campus training, free one-to-one training, free maintenance, and most importantly, MATLAB can be installed on any operating system from windows XP 32-bit to 8.1 64-bit and any of Mac IOS system!

And guess what! MathWorks package offers us access to all of the following for free:

  • MATLAB
  • Simulink
  • Symbolic Math Toolbox
  • Bioinformatics Toolbox
  • Control System Toolbox
  • Curve Fitting Toolbox
  • Data Acquisition Toolbox
  • DSP System Toolbox
  • Image Processing Toolbox
  • Instrument Control Toolbox
  • Optimization Toolbox
  • Parallel Computing Toolbox
  • Signal Processing Toolbox
  • SimMechanics
  • Simulink Control Design
  • Stateflow
  • Statistics Toolbox
  • SimScape

I tried to call PTC today to ask for help with my new operating system of 64-bit and all I got is hearing all the options of their answer machine and wasted 1 hour waiting on the line without success to speak with a person like us!

I guess this is it! it's the time to bid PTC and MATHCAD a farewell! It's been more than 10 years for me using MATHCAD and it's hard to let it go, but I'm stranded and left with no choice, except MATLAB.

I'm just sharing this story to see who else did encounter this problem before and what was the best way forward for this case?

Thank you.

8 REPLIES 8
FredLusk
12-Amethyst
(To:Alani)

Naji…

I am running Mathcad 15 and Mathcad Prime 3.0 on 64-bit Windows 7. I can even run my old Mathcad 8 in compatability mode.

I have never used Matlab, but from what I can tell it is an entirely different beast than Mathcad. Matlab is certainly powerful, apparently much more powerful than Mathcad, but it's primarily a programming environment. The beauty of Mathcad is that it doesn't require programming (although it can be done), but can be used to make calculations just like us old guys used to do with pencil and paper and either slide rule (yes, I can still use one) or calculator. The worksheet model produces good looking and easy to review documents, etc. etc.

I suggest not giving up on Mathcad, but rather add Matlab as ANOTHER tool in your toolbox.

Fred

There are a lot of people running MC 15 and Prime on 64-bit Windows, me among them.

The free modules you get as a student won't be free when you aren't in school. I think they all must be purchased separately with Matlab. For Mathcad, most of what you listed are part of the program.

You are probably correct about chemical engineers not being familiar with Mathcad. I don't know why because as I have shown in this community and on my website, it can be a very useful tool for ChEs.

Thanks for sharing your experience! I totally agree with you. Mathcad is not only very useful tool but also is very easy to use. I can't say how surprised I'm for the Millennials knowledge about Mathcad. As per my classmates: all told me that they got introduced to Matlab while they were in high school and they had no chance to learn other softwares. If there's someone to blame for losing the future market of this industry should be who ever runs PTC back-then-and-now. I can't tell how I like Mathcad, but, at the same time, I can't tell how I dislike their customer services. They need to learn a lot about how to treat customers in more professional manner, rather than taking your money and leave stranded in the middle of fierce semester.

I have an XP machine with mcd11, that I may have to give up (sigh!) and migrate the license to a win7 system. I have successfully installed mcd11 directly on a 32-bit Win7 PC, without needing to use the XP compatibility mode. I seem to recall that some users managed to do this successfully and others not. Anyone have any experience installing mcd11 directly on a 64-bit win7 system?

Lou

(I still prefer v11 over v14 or v15; it's faster and the new stuff in 14/15 isn't compelling enough to switch. Prime isn't even close.)

RichardJ
19-Tanzanite
(To:LouP)

I did it recently. You need Win 7 professional, so that you can install XP mode. You can't use the normal installation procedure to install MC11 though, even under XP mode. See this thread: http://communities.ptc.com/message/206558#206558

You need to do this before April 1st. See http://blogs.ptc.com/2014/09/25/ptc-mathcad-operating-systems-support-announcement/

LouP
10-Marble
(To:RichardJ)

Richard Jackson wrote:

I did it recently. You need Win 7 professional, so that you can install XP mode. You can't use the normal installation procedure to install MC11 though, even under XP mode. See this thread: http://communities.ptc.com/message/206558#206558

I recall seeing this some time ago, but I would think this is necessary only for 64-bit win7. The direct install worked for me with 32-bit win7, as hink it did for Stuart and some others. If I can get a new PC with 32bit win7, then I can always keep the XP mode install as plan B if the direct install doens't work for some reason.

You need to do this before April 1st. See http://blogs.ptc.com/2014/09/25/ptc-mathcad-operating-systems-support-announcement/

Thanks for this heads up.

As another possibility - perhaps temporary - I may do a re-install of the XP OS on the current v11 PC. The reason I'm pursuing any of these options is that this PC has gotten so slow (the gradual accumulation of various SW and unseen processes?) as to be extremely painful to use. I'm considering a complete wipe/reformat of the hard drive, with new XP OS and other SW installs, including mathcad. I recall that there's a way to save and relaod the current license file without requiring any new activation. Will this work with a start-from-scratch SW makeover? Is there a less drastic approach to the entire slowdown fix that should be tried first?

Lou

RichardJ
19-Tanzanite
(To:LouP)

I don't really know what to suggest to speed up your PC, because I don't know what you have tried . It's not exactly a Mathcad topic though, so I'll send you an email.

Liv
6-Contributor
6-Contributor
(To:Alani)

Older version, like Mathcad 2001 (and Mathconnex) with direct installation, run OK too on my 64 bit OS Win 7-Pro (SP1).

Best, Liv.

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