I recently was asked to upgrade Vault which was sitting on Windows Server 2012 R2. If you look at the latest Vault specifications Windows server 2012 disappeared off the list a good couple of years ago. I sent the spcs off to the company and somehow between all the communication the server software was upgraded to a version of Windows that was not compatible the version of Autodesk Vault that was loaded in the machine.
I tried to create a backup (you should always do this before attempting any maintenance or update work on your Vault server) but it just failed. I found a backup I had created before and restored that to see if it was still good. It was and so I got stuck into upgrading the Autodesk Vault Server but it didn’t want to update.
When upgrading the Vault Server, the older Vault version will be automatically uninstalled and then the new one will be installed but with this installation it did not work. No problems, I had the backup so I was going to uninstall manually and then re-install the newer version. The software uninstalled but when I tried installing the new software it kept on giving me a message that there was old software still installed. Now it was time to bring out the big guns, the Microsoft Advance uninstaller.
This has been my saving grace many a time when I tried to uninstall stubborn software but alas, it failed me. After struggling with registry deletes and various other methods of trying to get rid of the old software I cam to the conclusion that upgrading the Windows software in place had knocked the Vault server for a six and there was only one thing left to do. FORMAT. Luckily the Vault was the only software on the Server and there was not too much convincing for the IT department to do the necessary deed.
To prep for the new Server I restored the Vault Backup that I had created and updated it on a test machine. As we were updating from 2019, we had to first upgrade the Vault to 2021 then 2023 and finally to 2025. We also had to make sure that he appropriate SQL databases were installed at the correct intervals and in the correct order so that we had minimal chance of corrupting the data. With the new Autodesk Vault 2025 software installed and me being able to access it, we created another backup and restored it on the new server which was now running Windows Server 2022. It installed without a hitch and everyone could access their Inventor and AutoCAD files once more.
Some pointers to take out of this scenario when updating older Vault software to later versions from Windos server 2012 R2. Before doing anything make sure you have a valid backup. This might take some time to do the backup and then restore it to make sure you can access it. The integrity of your data is extremely important and you should rather take those extra few days to verify, so that you do not have to go into disaster recovery mode which can be extremely costly because of the costs involved and the complexity of the process to recover.
Once the backup has been restored and validated, I would uninstall and Vault server from the 2012 server as well as any residual files from the filestore and database. Upgrade your Windows software to 2019 or 2022 and then reinstall the version of Vault that you are upgrading to and restore the backup that you have.
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