Reason

You have Alchemy Catalyst 7 installed and you wish to install Alchemy Catalyst 8. However you wish to continue using Alchemy Catalyst 7 alongside your Alchemy Catalyst 8.

 

Solution

To run Alchemy Catalyst 7 and Alchemy Catalyst 8 on the same machine

Important: You will be required to have activated a Alchemy Catalyst 8 license in order to run both versions on the same machine.

Install Alchemy Catalyst 8 on the machine where Alchemy Catalyst 7 is currently installed

Installing and activating Alchemy Catalyst 8 on your PC will upgrade the licensing software previously associated with Alchemy Catalyst 7. You are required to deactivate your Alchemy Catalyst 7 license prior to activating your license of Alchemy Catalyst 8.

Enable Alchemy Catalyst 8 and Alchemy Catalyst 7 to co-exist

To continue to run Alchemy Catalyst 7 on your machine along with Alchemy Catalyst 8 you first need to open the Alchemy Catalyst 7 public folder and delete any old *.cert and *.lic files in this folder:

Vista & Windows 7 = C:\Users\Public\Alchemy Software\Catalyst 7

XP & Server 2003 = C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Alchemy Software\Catalyst 7

Next you need to paste the coexist.lic license file below into the Alchemy Catalyst 7 folder.

coexists.lic

Customize the License file for your PC

You now need to open the coexist.lic license file and modify it for your PC. The license file should say 'pcname' as show in the screenshot below. You need to change the 'PCname' to the 'ip address' or computer name of your individual PC.

To find your individual PC's computer name right-click on My Computer > Properties.
On Vista or Windows7, your computer name is given in this window across from "Computer name:" as shown in the screenshot below. In this example, the computer name is cyrilv02.

For Windows XP, click on the 'Computer Name' tab. Your computer name is given in this window across from "Full computer name:" as shown in the screenshot below. Do not include the domain name after the full stop. In this example, the computer name is cyrilv01.

Now proceed to modify the license file with your computer name. Using the first example, the coexist.lic should look like this:

Doing this means that when you wish to run Alchemy Catalyst 7 it will look to the Alchemy Catalyst 8 server to get its license. The Alchemy Catalyst 8 server will then sign out its license to Alchemy Catalyst 7.

Running the Alchemy Catalyst 8 server

To allow Alchemy Catalyst 7 to borrow the license from the Alchemy Catalyst 8 server it is necessary to run the Alchemy Catalyst 8 server first.

Each time you restart your machine from now on you should either run Alchemy Catalyst 8 to start the licensing local server or run start_server.bat in the Alchemy Catalyst 7 folder. You will now be able to run both Alchemy Catalyst 7.0 and 8.0 on the same machine simultaneously.

 

Related topics

 

Products or Versions Affected

  • Alchemy CATALYST 7.0, 8.0 or 9.0 only

 

Article last updated with Catalyst 10