twentysevenlitres

I got my Bentley a couple of months ago.
Their eBahn system only works on Windows XP (doesn't natively work on VISTA, 7 or 8, but can be made to).
Mac owners will be fine, as Macs have a Windows virtual machine build in to OSX.

All is not lost though - I've got Windows 7 (ultimate 64 bit), and although little bit of a headache to install, it can be done.
All versions of Win 7 except for home basic can be upgaded with "XP mode", which is basically a fully functional and installed version of XP professional SP3 operating as a virtual machine (ie. it operates independantly of, but within, the Win 7 operating system).
You need a pretty modern and powerful PC for this though, as you simultaneously run two operating systems.
Bit fiddly to set up (required changing BIOS settings), but once I did, Bentley installed with no problems!
You can't shortcut directly to the Win 7 desktop though (for Bentley), which is unfortunate.
However, I then found I could also install my copy of ETKA, which is also XP only!

silverd2

I've got Bentley and ETKA 7.3 , which both installed and work well on my Vista Home Premium with no issues at all.

Back when Vista was young, eBahn would not work with Vista. Since I'd already purchased the DVD and needed the info, Bentley Publishers gave me a free online subscription until they could re-write the eBahn Reader to be compatible, which they did successfully about a year and a half later. No issues since then (for me) with the newest version of the reader.

twentysevenlitres

Ah, now that's interesting...
Vista and Win 7 (and 8 for that matter) share the same "engine" (ie, they're mostly compatible with each other).
The DVD I bought was definitely for XP only, which means the eBahn reader that comes with the DVD is probably the same as the one you originally bought.

So I too might be able to contact Bentley to get the later eBahn reader to work on Win 7?
It does quite well in "XP Mode" on Win 7 for now, but I'd rather get it working on Win 7 proper (it struck me when I bought it that it was odd they'd never updated the reader).

Maurice [B]

Hello, I'm the sales & marketing manager over here at Bentley, figured I'd chime in, especially as twentysevenlitres brought this thread to our attention a couple of days ago. I did want to help clear up some of the information on the eBahn program and Win 7.

Unfortunately, at this time eBahn is compatible only with Windows 2000 and Windows XP. What this means for Windows 7 folks is that if you have one of the Windows 7 (or later) versions that have the ability to run a program in XP mode, your best bet will be to run eBahn in XP mode. Check out this tech support page on our website for a bit more info on the various options: https://wiki.bentleypublishers.com/x/DQBZAg

At this time, we don't have any news on a natively-compatible Windows 7 or later version of eBahn. If or when we do, in addition to announcing it on our website, FB & Twitter pages, I'll make a point to announce it here as well.

silverd2

I notice that any mention of Windows Vista is conspicuously missing from your post(?)

I assume you may have read my post below about my early problems with Vista compatibility, which were resolved later and continue to be...I just recently added Bentley C5/Allroad and no problems with that either, other than (as always) my security program (Norton) initially seeing eBahn as a virus, which is easily solved by adding it as an exclusion to virus recognition and scanning.

I do still get the "Vista Compatibility Warning" when reloading and ignore that. I have the 32bit version of Vista home premium (always updated).

Is my system a mysterious exception or do others still have a problem running eBahn with mine and other versions of Vista?

Maurice [B]

It's not necessarily a "mysterious exception", most users have gotten eBahn up & running on Vista after setting up to run eBahn as an administrator. It is admittedly a work-around but one that has worked for most folks that we've helped out with. We have a tech support FAQ page for that as well: https://wiki.bentleypublishers.com/x/mgA-/