In Vault 2013, we shifted over to .NET 4. This isn’t just an API change, the product itself shifted too. In fact, I think all Autodesk products using .NET were told to shift over. The whole suites thing forces our products to be on the same technology platforms whenever possible.
Anyway, here is what you need to know as a programmer. .NET 2 through 3.5 used the same CLR (common language runtime), which meant that they were very compatible. However .NET 4 uses a new CLR, which means that there are now compatibility issues between .NET 4 and older .NET versions. For example, a .NET 3.5 app cannot load a 4.0 assembly.
If you are working with a 3.5 app and want to communicate with Vault 2013 server, you have a few options. One option is to use the 2012 version of Autodesk.Connectivity.WebServices, which will have 16 as the version number. Those DLLs will still be able to communicate with the 2013 server. The downside is that you will not have the newest features, such as custom entities. Another option is to use the Autodesk.Connectivity.WebServices from the SharePoint 2010 integration. Because SharePoint 2010 uses .NET 3.5, we had to create a special DLL for it. You can get this DLL from ADN, however we do not provide official support for it.
Other aspects of .NET 4:
- Visual Studio 2010 or higher must be used
- Any project referencing a Vault API assembly must be .NET 4
- .NET 4 framework must be installed on computers running the app. The Vault installers definitely do this step during their install, and I think most other Autodesk installers do too.
- If you are writing an extension to Vault, such as a custom command, you can load in older version assemblies. However it’s recommended to use .NET 4 whenever possible.
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