Should we uninstall 8.1?

[jpolding]

I'm curious as to what the general Revitpublic does when we get updates, seeing as how the file formats only go forward. What would be the reasons to keep previous versions. Since I do tech support for various clients, some of whom use the previous version for a while, I have been keeping about 2 versions on stand-by.

[Dimitri Harvalias]

I'd keep doing what you are doing; save the previous version, possibly two previous versions at most. As far as support goes, you can always open the files from previous versions. The problem comes when you want to send back a fixed up file to client using an older release.

I don't have any hard facts about it but I would guess the majority of Revit is sold on subscription and the upgrades have been regular and worthwhile (assuming you don't read some of the latest gripes from others on the forum ;) ) so most won't let their subscription lapse and they will always be working from the current release.
The only other factor would be legacy projects that were not upgraded. You may want to save the version they were created in, or at least the installation exe file, so you don't have any issues when upgrading (the room object/room tag issue comes to mind)

[jcoe]

I've instituted a policy early on that each user maintains, at a minimum, the latest release and the previous release on thier workstation. This is because of one thing and one thing only; THE BUG. In the past, when Revit was released, we encountered some upgrade issues when going from one version to another (ie. wall joins and stacked walls to name a couple). Now, any new projects are started in the latest release and finished in that release. We try to avoid upgrading our current projects into the latest version.

However, I will say that as a trial, I upgraded a project into 9 and it was as smooth as one could hope, but for now I will still maintain my policy. Once bitten.....

[mcilrath]

I kept 8.1 on my machine. Now I find that 8.1 cannot open the file I've been working on in version 9.

VM

[dhurtubise]

Revit is not backward compatible