Upgrading from 2016 to 2019 ??

[doug.johnston]

Hey all,

We are currently using 2016 at work and are looking to possibly update to 2019, just to catch up to the current/future version.

It has been recommended to me to upgrade to 2018 first, then go to 2019.

Are there any issues / concerns / etc. going to 2019 from 2016 directly ??

Thanks,

Doug

[mdavis22569]

Are you migrating data? 

If so, I believe the suggested upgrading recommendation is not to skip more than 2 versions ...

2019 (won't be out until March / April going by past releases) ... So if you have data migrate, I would do it in 2018, then with 2019 comes out you have an easier migration / updating.   

There were quite a few changes from 2016 to 2018, this will also give you or your users some time to get used to the new browser and enhancements till 2018 comes out.

Just my opinion.....

[Mark.Lancaster]

@doug.johnston

Are you talking about Vault/CAD upgrade or just CAD (like Inventor information)?

If Vault is involved than you need to go to 2018 and 2019 (when its released next year/spring time).

If you are talking just about CAD information, you can go directly to 2019 without any issues.  But as @mdavis22569 pointed out there's many changes that the users will need to get use to.

[johnsonshiue]

Hi Doug,

Like Mike indicated, Inventor 2019 is not yet released. It is still in development. But, I am not aware of any limitation in migration. You can migrate from 2016 to any given release including 2019. Do you mind telling me who made the recommendation?

Many thanks!

[doug.johnston]

Yes ... we are looking at Inventor only.  We will be implementing Vault in the new year and might wait until the new versions come out.  We are not currently using Vault.

I am currently the only person in the company, but there are 3 more users starting sometime in the spring.  So they are not that familiar with 2016 now as they use it very rarely.

The recommendation came from our Autodesk reseller and I always take anything they say as their opinion, as they are trying to upsell us.

[johnsonshiue · Accepted solution]

Hi Doug,

All I can say is that there is no technical benefit to migrate from 2016 to 2018 and then 2019. If you are targeting to use 2019. There will not be any technical difficulty to migrate from 2016 directly to 2019. It is solely up to you. Inventor Professional 2018 has a lot of new features and enhancements that 2016 does not have. Some you may care but some you may not care. You will have to make your own decision when to migrate to what release.

Certainly, I would love to have you use 2018 now (2018.2 is the latest update).

Many thanks!

[mcgyvr]

---

@johnsonshiue wrote:

Hi Doug,

Like Mike indicated, Inventor 2019 is not yet released. It is still in development. But, I am not aware of any limitation in migration. You can migrate from 2016 to any given release including 2019. Do you mind telling me who made the recommendation?

Many thanks!

---

@johnsonshiue 

Johnson, Over the years Autodesk has always made some statements about not trying to migrate more than 3 versions back,etc...

Like this..

Thats where the information comes from and we just repeat it.. This and there are other articles discussing it.. This is just the first one I found..

https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/inventor-products/troubleshooting/caas/CloudHelp/cloudhelp/20...

[jtylerbc]

I have seen it recommended in similar articles for years as well.  For what it's worth, I have often disregarded it, and have never been bitten by it as a result.  We have no systematic overall migration (other than in some particular library folders) of our files when we upgrade.  Our file structure here (non-Vault, somewhat decentralized, etc.) would make it rather difficult and time consuming to do, so we migrate as files get revised. 

My suspicion has always been that it was a valid guideline at one point, but that it has gradually become irrelevant and still gets suggested out of habit.  The examples in the article @mcgyvr referenced would seem to me to support that suspicion - they all refer to very old issues (2009 and prior) that could potentially cause problems.  My interpretation of the article is that migration compatibility is only tested 3 years back, so migrating farther than that could cause problems.  It isn't necessarily saying that it will cause them.  If you're going from 2010+ to a current release, I think the guideline may be a little overly cautious.

[johnsonshiue]

Hi Brian and John,

Yes, I heard about 3-year recommendation. I think it is more to do with legally binding support for legacy releases. In theory, indeed, migrating through more releases bears higher risk than migrating through less releases. However, if a given target release is the same, I do not see any difference between going from 2016 -> 2018 and then 2019 and 2016 -> 2019 directly. The only difference is that you get to use 2018 immediate and enjoy some benefits, instead of waiting for 2019.

Over the history of Inventor, I do recall in the early days migrating is a risky business. One can suffer from data loss or corruption. But, gradually Inventor becomes much more stable. Systematic migration failures are extremely rare. Also, you don't have to migrate all files. Our internal testing shows that the memory footprint incurred by non-migrated data is less than 1%.

Many thanks!

[SBix26]

My experience has been similar to @jtylerbc's-- never had a problem migrating files over many versions.  We started with version 5.3, and I have tried migrating some of our early files to 2017 (= version 21) with perfect success.  These weren't highly complex parts and assemblies, but neither were they just cubes and cylinders.

Sam B

Inventor Professional 2018.2
Vault Workgroup 2018.0
Windows 7 Enterprise 64-bit, SP1