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V25 Installation fails on Windows 11 for ARM

I've been using v24 on a macbookpro with M1 processor (ARM) running windows 11 on Parallels desktop successfully for a couple of months now (and previously on an intel-based mac for almost a decade, but that's another story).
Setup of v25 however fails while trying to install the Visual C++ redistributable:

1656435838525.png

1656437053540.png

I tried to manually download and install two redistributables from microsoft, but it appears that none of them is recognized during the initial check step of the setup, so it always lists the prerequisite as in the first screenshot above, and its installation always fails.

The versions of the redistributable I found and downloaded manually on the microsoft website are:
2015-2022 redistributable (x64) 14.32.31332
2019 redistributable (Arm64) 14.29.30035.

When I previously installed V24 on the same (virtual) machine, the required redistributable(s) (x64) were installed automatically without any particular issue. And V24 is still working great on the same machine.

Any ideas?
[edit: added a couple more details in the hope it's useful for others]
 
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UPDATE: I tried installing the V24 Service Pack 1 first, which updates/installs some redistributables (hopefully the same required by v25), and then repeated the process above to update to v25, but the final outcome is the same, problem persists.
 

DavidJ

Administrator
Staff member
Alibre Design is a Windows x64 (Intel/AMD) application. I would not expect it to run on ARM hardware as it wasn't compiled for that platform.

Virtual machine installations can work but are not officially supported.
 

swertel

Alibre Super User
I get the same error on an Intel machine with Windows 11.

I gave up trying to upgrade to v25 until I have time to uninstall v24, manually install the distributable, and then try to reinstall v25.
 
Interesting that it does not appear to be ARM-related!
I also tried, earlier today, to manually install the distributable first (on a completely fresh instance of windows 11), and then install Alibre. Still same problem. Are you running on bare metal or on Parallels?
 

Ralf

Alibre Super User
AD - V25 -> installed on a new HP Omen - O16 with Windows 11 (Intel i7 11800H)

Here are the steps with screenshots, two with my mobile phone:

V25-on-a-clean-never-used-laptop-with-ALL-Win11-updates.png

Extrem-Slow-.png

Photo with the mobile phone: vcredist_x64.exe
The download and installation take> 5 minutes
UAC warning message:
IMG_3747.jpeg

OK-now-can-start.png

License.png

Inst-proce.png

UAC warning message:
IMG_3748.jpeg

...
The "download time and installation time" of the vcredist_x64.exe is very slow.
 
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swertel

Alibre Super User
I get the same error on an Intel machine with Windows 11.

I gave up trying to upgrade to v25 until I have time to uninstall v24, manually install the distributable, and then try to reinstall v25.
After I posted this, I decided to give it one more try.

Of course, now it works. No changes to anything. It just worked this time.
 
I did some more testing / troubleshooting, here some findings:
1) Scott's problem seems to be unrelated to mine; as Ralf points out, the setup procedure works also on windows 11 (and indeed I would have been surprised if it didn't) on bare metal (not inside a virtual machine) and on intel/amd 64 architecture. Other users reported that it might be necessary to try out several times until it succeeds, but succeed it does in the end
2) I could successfully install V25 on Parallels in a Windows 11 (Home) VM on my old (and slow) intel macbook. Hence virtualization does not appear to play a role here (this is a relief...)
3) Having excluded the virtualization and OS variables, what remains is the ARM architecture. As it has been pointed out above, the application has not been specifically compiled for ARM. However, Windows 11 for ARM supports the execution of x64 binaries automatically by means of emulation. V24 works for me in the same ARM environment (and, despite emulation, it is even pretty fast). (By the way, supporting ARM should be pretty straightforward according to microsoft [https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/arm/overview]as it seems to boil down to setting a couple of flags in visual studio... but I would be surprised if it were so easy, especially when third-party libraries are also part of the mix).
4) It looks like the setup procedure requires the VC++ 2019 redistributable for x64. According to the documentation, the x64 redistributable setup package includes both architectures, but somehow it eventually installs only the arm64, which triggers the error by the Alibre setup since it expects to see the x64.
The same happens if I try to install the VC++ redistributable manually: it always end up installing the arm64 version of it.
Something must have changed between V24 and V25 in the behaviour of the VC++ redistributable setup procedure (a change that probably is not related to Alibre directly).

I will keep on experimenting as time permits.

Any other users on ARM out there?
 

DavidJ

Administrator
Staff member
Despite Mac and ARM not being officially supported, because v24 was reported as working this has been looked into.

Some changes made to v25 installer to make it more reliable for most users had an unintended side effect in that it might not detect when Visual C++ is installed in ARM. Some changes to the way the installer checks for Visual C++ have been made and tested satisfactorily. V25 SP1 which is currently being worked on will include these changes.
 
Despite Mac and ARM not being officially supported, because v24 was reported as working this has been looked into.

Some changes made to v25 installer to make it more reliable for most users had an unintended side effect in that it might not detect when Visual C++ is installed in ARM. Some changes to the way the installer checks for Visual C++ have been made and tested satisfactorily. V25 SP1 which is currently being worked on will include these changes.
Hi, I confirm that this is now working with SP1! Thanks a lot Alibre team for looking into this!
 
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