FileMaker 6 on Intel Macs

[DougA]

It took me a while to cull through several forums and sites to find the info I was looking for about using FileMaker Pro 6 on an Intel Mac, so I thought I would post what I learned for others benefit. Other users can add to or correct any mistakes I've made.

 

(I figure there must be others with similar questions, since the FileMaker 5/6 forum always seems to have the most online viewers whenever I log on.)

 

Will FileMaker Pro 6 work on Intel Macs? Definitely yes. And for most uses it works just fine. The main thing to keep in mind is that since version 6 was written for thePowerPC processor, it will run in the "Rosetta" PowerPC emulation on the Intel Mac. There are only two issues related to that which I have come across:

 

(a) there was at one time a particular MOD function that was reported to not always calculate properly when running on an Intel Mac in OS 10.4. However, some users reported that the problem went away or was "fixed" after one of Apple's later security updates or software updates. I have not experienced this problem; I loaded FileMaker 6 on an Intel Mac with an updated OS 10.4.11. Also, my database (an shared equipment inventory database with some financial calculations included, minimal scripts) probably is not using the MOD function.

 

(b) sharing a FileMaker 6 database running on an Intel mac runs slower than on a Power PC, seems to create some network errors residue and can be a little squirrelly if you try to use it on the hosting machine.

 

I have about 9 users accessing shared FM files hosted on a separate Mac.

 

Since I want to keep using FileMaker Pro 6 (which allows sharing the file with up to 10 other FileMaker users), I am in the process of setting up FileMaker Pro 5/6 in Windows XP on an Intel Mac using Parallels software to host the shared files. I am not aware of any problems with running FileMaker Pro 5 or 6 on WIndows XP. And fortunately all of my copies of FileMaker include installers for both Mac and Windows, allowing me to easily switch platforms.

 

(By the way, according to Parallels folk, I should be able to access the Windows 'host' FileMaker file using another licensed copy of FileMaker in the Mac portion of the same Intel Mac -- which is useful to avoid layout display differences between Mac and Windows. Must use 'bridged" ethernet in Parallels for the host file to be visible on the network).

 

Hope this info is helpful for someone else.

 

Regards,

 

Doug