Beginning with CONNECT Edition Update 5, the Bentley product "AECOsim Building Designer" has been rebranded as "OpenBuildings Designer". While this change will be obvious by the name of the installer itself as well as the application's title bar, it also changes the underlying folder structure at both the \Program Files\ and Program Data\ level.
The recommended process for upgrading your existing AECOsim Building Designer CONNECT Edition installation to OpenBuildings Designer CONNECT Edition is to:
1. From Control Panel > Programs and Features, uninstall your existing version of AECOsim Building Designer CONNECT Edition.
2. Once the uninstall is complete: a. Browse to C:\Program Files\Bentley\ and delete the remaining \AECOsim CONNECT Edition folder. b. Browse to your AECOsim Building Designer workspace, by default located at C:\ProgramData\Bentley\AECOsim CONNECT Edition\, and rename the existing \Configuration folder to \”Configuration_Update4” or similar. This will retain all of your existing customizations and content.
3. Install OpenBuildings Designer Update 5.
By first uninstalling AECOsim Building Designer, the new Update 5 installation will be located under C:\Program Files\Bentley\OpenBuildingsDesigner\:
And because you previously renamed your \Configuration folder, Update 5 will install its Datasets and Workspaces under C:\ProgramData\Bentley\OpenBuildingsDesigner\Configuration\.
If you do choose to update an existing installation of AECOsim CONNECT Edition instead, the update process itself will not remove existing \AECOsim folders but will instead add new \OpenBuildings folders and their accompanying sub-folder structures. For example, under \Program Files\Bentley\ there will still be an \AECOsim CONNECT Edition folder with an \AECOsimBuildingDesigner sub-folder in parallel with \OpenBuildingsDesigner:
While under Program Data\Bentley\ your Configuration folder will still be located under the existing \AECOsim CONNECT Edition folder instead of \OpenBuildings:
The \Datasets folder as shown is from the existing AECOsim Building Designer installation since the installer update routine does not remove nor replace it or any of its sub-folders. However, under the \Workspaces sub-folder there will be a new Workspace called Building_Examples in parallel with the existing AECOsimExamples:
When following the recommended process outlined above these AECOsim folders will no longer exist, leaving only OpenBuildings which allows for a cleaner directory structure.
Note: AECOsim Building Designer CONNECT Edition and OpenBuildings Designer CONNECT Edition cannot coexist on the same computer as they are sequential releases of the same application, despite the name change.
following on from this guidance please see Installing OpenBuildings Designer for an illustrated guide to the installation sequence