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Due to a special customer requirements situation, I'm in a position where I will have to run two old (rather, one old and one ancient) FileMaker Server instances -- 5.5 and 9.

If at all possible, I'd like to run both of those on one(!) Windows XP Pro machine.

Setting aside the security implications (which can be controlled rather reliably in this setting) - is it possible to run FMS 5.5 and 9 on one machine?

Will they both work on Windows XP Pro?

FileMaker states that FMS 5.5 on XP is not "supported", but -- will it work in practice? 5.5 is EOL'd anyway and I need to keep this setup running for a while longer, until the replacement can be put into service.

(Reasoning for doing a new setup with this: They databases have been served from two Macs that will be consolidated into windows VM(s) - one if at all possible.)

Kara Marfia
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Bernd Haug
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3 Answers3

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Run two VM's and have only one FilemakerServer version on each VM. This way you can serve out the FM Databases separately.

However, long term, you should convert the databases to FileMaker 10. It's not usually that hard, but it does take time to make sure the conversion worked properly. FileMaker 5.5 databases often did have issues in themselves compared FileMaker 7 and later on files.

tegbains
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I don't think you're going to have luck running both versions of FileMaker Server on the same machine. From what I'm seeing, a listening TCP port 5003 is used by both version of FileMaker Server. Have a look at Internet Firewall and Router Configuration (TCP/IP Port 5003) and FileMaker Server and FileMaker Server Advanced port numbers for more details.

Evan Anderson
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It's been a while since we got rid of our Filemaker stuff, which was on 5.5 at the time. I think we tested FMServer on XP and it worked, but I don't remember for sure. Why not just try it, it's not a big install.

There's no way that I know of to change the port FM listens on, so you're stuck with two machines.

How big are the databases, and how heavily used? If they're not too big, you could just run Filemaker Pro 5.5 on an XP machine (or VM) and use it as the server.

Ward - Reinstate Monica
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