If you have just installed a new version of Vectorworks and you aren't able to find a particular tool or menu command that you know should be in specific location by default, chances are you "migrated" when you installed  and first ran this version of Vectorworks.


Migration can be a handy way to bring forward older workspaces and other resources, but sometimes migration isn't able to reconcile your older customized workspaces with the new tools and commands that arrive with a new version. One of the clues that migration wasn't able to reconcile the location of a tool or command is that the item is not located where you expect it to be or where the Vectorworks Help documentation says it should be. Another clue is that you may have a "New" menu in your menu bar. (This New menu will contain the commands that have arrived with the new version of Vectorworks but weren't able to be placed into your migrated workspace.)


In some rare cases, a particular tool that appears in your migrated tool set may not function as expected. This typically occurs because migration has kept your previous tool where you had it and did not replace it with the improved tool that should replace it. The previous icon may be appear to be exactly the same as the newly improved tool, but the underlying connection to the new functions was not made.


There are a few ways to sort out misplaced or orphaned tools or menu commands:

  1. The easiest solution is to uninstall Vectorworks (using the Uninstaller included in the Vectorworks Application folder), then re-install and re-run Vectorworks opting Not to migrate when given the chance to. (If you have user customized content other than workspaces, you should backup this content prior to uninstalling.)  
  2. Another option would be to locate your user data folder (via the Vectorworks Preferences > User Folders tab) and with Vectorworks quit, backup this folder, then delete it. Re-run Vectorworks and a new user data folder will be created.
  3. Yet another way would be to manually relocate all of the commands in the New menu, and track down and replace any tools that may not have been connected properly during migration. (This may be the best option if your previous workspace that was migrated was heavily customized already. 


If you would still like to migrate some older material from an older version of Vectorworks to your new version, we recommend doing so "a la carte" as described in the video below and on this Help document page. 



As a Best Practice, we typically advise installing each new version of Vectorworks as a fresh, stock install, so you get the application as the developers intended it to be. Then, if you want or need to customize a workspace, we recommend making a copy of a stock workspace and customizing it to your liking. This will allow you to switch back to a stock workspace for your particular module (Architect, Spotlight or Landmark) at any time, should that be needed for troubleshooting purposes.


More information about Workspaces and the Workspace Editor can be viewed as part of the video below: