InstallShield 2013 on Windows Server 2019

[pierre_dete]

We have been using InstallShield 2013 Professional for many years on a Windows Server 2013 operating system. Our IT department has asked us to upgrade to Windows Server 2019 to benefit from the latest features and enhancements. So we have a few questions for you:

Is version 13 compatible with Windows Server 2019? How do we go about migrating the licence? Is it possible to update InstallShield to a more recent version without having to revise all the scripts that we haven't used for a long time? Thank you for your attention and your responsiveness.

Best regards.

[skrueger]

The activation service for InstallShield 2013 (and older) has been discontinued (see below message that Revenera sent to customers in February 2022). This means that you can't active this version anymore and therefore you can't move it to another machine. Also, it will probably stop working on the existing machine once automatic re-activation is required.

And obviously, InstallShield 2013 doesn't officially support Windows Server 2019 since that didn't exist when it was released.

So it is recommended that you buy the latest version, InstallShield 2023. Your existing projects can be imported and will automatically be converted. Whether manual modifications are required depens on your project. In the help documentaton you can find some notices what to expect when moving from 2013 to 2023. I'd recommend downloading the evaluation version and test the conversion process.

This is the message from Revenera:

Important: InstallShield Activation Service Discontinued

We are informing you that the InstallShield Activation Service will be discontinued and no longer available starting July 1, 2022. The InstallShield Activation Service is used to support the reactivation logic required to continue using InstallShield versions 2013 or older.

Once the Activation Service has been discontinued, affected versions of InstallShield will not be able to reactivate their licenses and will become inoperable. Until then you may continue to use InstallShield 2013 or older. As always, we hope you are successful with our products!

We are sure you understand that technology changes rapidly. And while Revenera does a lot to support customers on end-of-life versions, as time passes and more customers move to modern versions of InstallShield, you may experience more changes in the future by choosing to stay on versions of InstallShield 2013 and older.

To avoid being impacted by these changes and ensure uninterrupted use of InstallShield, we advise users of InstallShield 2013 or older to upgrade to the latest version.