This is essential reading if you are planning to upgrade your Impact workstations and database to Impact 2019 R2 and 2019 R2 SP1. Please ensure you have read and understood all the issues described before you proceed. If you are unsure of anything covered here, please contact your support representative.
WARNING: This document covers the Impact 2019 R2 release (11.1.1.0) and later service packs. If you are upgrading from any version prior to Impact 2019 (11.0.1.0), please also see the corresponding Release Notes for each of the earlier releases.
Licensing
TIP: If you are already able to run Impact 2016 R4 or 2019, you can skip this entire 'Licensing' section.
Before proceeding with an upgrade, please ensure that all of your licences allow the use of Impact 2019 R2
If you are using software-based (Nalpeiron) licences, then the licence on each workstation may need to be activated once again. Similarly, if you are using Impact Licence Server, you may need to install new LIC files on the server.
Licensing in Impact 2019 R2
Impact 2016 R4 introduced an improved licensing system. Consequently, if you are upgrading from Impact 2016 R3 or earlier, you will need new licence codes in order to run Impact, so please be sure that you have obtained these from Arden Software before you upgrade.
Activating Your Licence Online
When starting Impact for the first time, you will be prompted to enter your licence code (which will be an 18-digit code starting with 4965).
If your computer has an internet connection, you can press the Activate button for immediate activation, after which you can continue to connect to your Impact database.
Advanced Options
If your company uses a proxy for internet access, you should press the Licensing Options button in the bottom-right corner of this form, and enter the proxy server address, the port, your user name and your password, as necessary. You also have the option to use HTTP or HTTPS for the activation.
If your company security policies stop Impact from contacting the activation server, you may need to ask your IT team to open the firewall to this location (https://my.nalpeiron.com, port 80 for HTTP or port 443 for HTTPS).
Activating Your Licence Offline
If your computer does not have an internet connection, you can press the Manual Activation button to generate a request code.
Once you have this code, you can generate a confirmation code by visiting this website (from any computer): http://www.impactcad.net/?redir=activate, or you can email this to your Impact support team and they will generate the confirmation code for you.
Paste the confirmation code into the area provided, then press OK. If the request code and the activation code match, the licence will be activated.
Licence Details
You may view the licence details using Help > About, Licence or from Options > Environment, Workstation, Licensing. If you need to, you can deactivate the licence from either of these forms.
Virtual Machines
If you wish to run Impact on a virtual machine, please note that your licence will have to be activated every time you start Impact. When you first activate the licence, there is an option to “Automatically attempt to activate this licence when Impact restarts”.
Additional Information
Unlike before, this new licensing system does not need any Windows service to be installed. Previously a service called “Nalpeiron Licensing Service” was required.
And unlike before, there is no separate activation utility (previously “ImpactActivation.exe”).
Licence Server in Impact 2019 R2
If instead of having an 18-digit software-based licence code, you use Licence Server then you do not need to perform any licence activation. Instead, just ensure that your licences are valid for the version of Impact that you are using.
NOTE: In the past Licence Server automatically allowed the use of test versions (for example for beta testing). From Impact 2016 R4 onwards, this behaviour is controlled by a licence feature. If you are planning to run a test build, you should first ensure this feature is enabled on your licences.
Operating Systems Compatibility
For further details, refer to Impact 2019 R2 system requirements.
Impact 2019 R2 is fully supported on Windows 10, Windows 8.1, Windows 8 and Windows 7.
On versions of Microsoft Windows prior to Windows 10, attempting to run Impact throws may indicate an error:
The program can't start because api-ms-win-crt-runtime-l1-1-0.dll is missing from your computer.
Install appropriate version of KB2999226 from https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/2999226/update-for-universal-c-runtime-in-windows
This update applies to the following operating systems:
- Windows Server 2012 R2
- Windows 8.1
- Windows RT 8.1
- Windows Server 2012
- Windows 8
- Windows RT
- Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 (SP1)
- Windows 7 SP1
- Windows Server 2008 Service Pack 2 (SP2)
- Windows Vista SP2
Impact 2019 R2 will not install or run on Windows XP, because Microsoft ended support for XP in April 2014. Similarly, Windows 2000 and Windows Server 2003 are no longer supported.
NOTE: We do not recommend that Windows Vista or 7 are used because Microsoft has ended mainstream support for both products. Similarly, we do not recommend that Windows Server 2008 / 2008 R2 are used for the same reason.
Database Servers Compatibility
For further details, refer to Impact 2019 R2 system requirements.
Impact 2019 R2 supports the following database environments:
- SQL Server 2008 SP1, version 10.00.2531 or later
- SQL Server 2008 R2, version 10.50.1600 or later
- SQL Server 2012 (11.0)
- SQL Server 2014 (12.0)
- SQL Server 2016 (13.0)
- SQL Server 2017 (14.0)
- SQL Server 2019 (15.0)
- Oracle 11g Release 1, version 11.1.0.6 or later
- Oracle 12c
- Oracle 18c
- Oracle 19c
- MySQL, version 5.1 or later
NOTE: For SQL Server databases, the compatibility level needs to be “SQL Server 2005 (90)” or higher.
NOTE: For MySQL, we recommend you use version 5.1 of the ODBC driver version.
Database Drivers
Impact supports the following ADO drivers for SQL Server:
- Microsoft OLE DB Provider for SQL Server (SQLOLEDB)
- Microsoft OLE DB Driver for SQL Server (MSOLEDBSQL)
- SQL Server Native Client (SQLNCLI*)
NOTE: Previous Impact versions did not support MSOLEDBSQL.
NOTE: Since Impact 2019, DSN-less OBDC connections are also supported. In Impact these are referred to as ODBCDIRECT connections.
TIP: We normally recommend using ODBC or ODBCDIRECT connections because in general they are faster and require less memory.
Database Structure
No database structure changes are necessary when upgrading from Impact 2019 to Impact 2019 R2.
Database Installation Settings
Impact 2019 R2 introduces a new auto-task for ‘Close (After)’. When first connecting to the database you will be prompted to run the “Check Auto Tasks” automatic update.
New Tools
There are no new tool items introduced by this version, only feature enhancements.
Installing nServer or ActiveX
Please note that when installing nServer or the Impact ActiveX component on certain operating systems, namely Windows 10 and Windows Server 2016, a misleading error message may appear. The message is “Error 1904. Module …\basecad.dll failed to register. HRESULT -1073741819. Contact your support personnel.” If this happens, please press the Ignore button and the installation will continue successfully.
Compatible Products
Impact 2019 R2 should be used only in conjunction with the following products:
- Impact Viewer 2019 R2
- Impact Licence Server 2019 R2
- nServer 2019 R2
- Impact 3DX any version up to 1.7
- Enterprise 11.1 or later – please contact our support team for further information
NOTE: If you use any Impact scripts or plug-ins, you should ensure that they are compatible with Impact 2019 R2 prior to upgrading your database.
WARNING: In you have WEBcnx installed, you must consult your WEBcnx support personnel to confirm compatibility before proceeding to upgrade nServer or WEBcnx.
TIP: It is recommended that Enterprise users upgrade to Enterprise 11.1 in order to take advantage of support for linked revisions and master projects.
Additional Material
For a description of the major new features introduced with this version, please refer to What's New In Impact 2019 R2.
The hardware requirements for Impact 2019 R2 are the same as for the previous release. Please refer to System Requirements.
A number of new COM interfaces have been introduced. See the "What's New In Impact 2019 R2" section of the Impact COM Documentation for more information.