Mastercam Users: Requesting advice. Which recent version is most stable? 2023-20

[Brian]

Hi guys:

A friend is working for a company that uses MC, and after upgrading PC hardware is going to reinstall MC. Can folks please provide feedback on their preferred MC version at this time?

Here is the link to his posting on Practical Machinist:

https://www.practicalmachinist.com/forum/threads/mastercam-users-requesting-advice-which-recent-version-is-most-stable-2023-2025.442430/

Thanks, Brian

[JParis]

2026, more to that specifc question, run the darn latest version you can

Stable version LMAO, sketchy user at best if you ask me 

Especially those "Practical Machinist" peeps...most of them over there at this point are all hacks in my opinion...wanna be pretenders...I love when people throw around the "stable" version....they think they're still running on DOS..

There hasn't been an unstable version in decades....

There's been versions that were not perhaps much in a move forward, perhaps some regressions but I've used every consecutive version since V8......

[Jeff]

2026 still has some glaring issues.
Don't get me started JP!   

[JParis]

2026 still has some glaring issues.
Don't get me started JP!   

Issues, yes....unstable, no

[Brian]

There hasn't been an unstable version in decades....

I think people forget that the participants in such discussions are largely a self-selecting group anyway; if things were just hunky-dory there wouldn't be any reason to post-only the complaints bubble to the surface!

Google "survivorship bias examples" for a better explanation of this-LOL.

[JParis]

It's a poor craftsman that blames his tools 

[CNCAppsJames]

It's a poor craftsman that blames his tools 

PLENTY of poor craftsmen in this trade.

#ChangeMyMind



The last "unstable" version... V7.0?

I mean I've never not been able to get my work done. When I experienced crashes, I was always able to figure out why and fix it either through new hardware, registry fix, or workflow change.

Practical Machinist...

The Heidenhain and Siemens folks are awful quiet since I showed up.

Their shit stinks just as bad as FANUC's... and I can prove it.

[Brian]

It's a poor craftsman that blames his tools 

Yeah-that too! "Never let the perfect be the enemy of the good!" If somebody's paying me to do something I'm happy to try to do it their way....if that fails, all bets are off!

[Brian]

Speaking of tools, did anyone else here have grief with some of the Intel 13th/14th Gen i7/i8/i9's? A Dell I bought a couple of years back gave me never-ending grief until they finally warrantied it and replaced the MB and CPU....problem solved, thankfully. I'd never seen anything like it!

[gcode]

The last "unstable" version... V7.0?

The first release of X was kind of hinky.

[CNCAppsJames]

The first release of X was kind of hinky.

Yeah, maybe that was version I was thinking of. Regardless.. it has been a VERY long time since an "unstable" version has released.

[CNCAppsJames]

I've got an i9... brand new. It's been a model citizen. Kicked ass on the Benchmark. 

[Newbeeee™]

Issues, yes....unstable, no

You talking Mcam or Jeffrey?

[Newbeeee™]

The first release of X was kind of hinky.

What was shite, was a lot of the V9 capability had yet to be implemented into it - missing features!

[Newbeeee™]

Yeah, maybe that was version I was thinking of. Regardless.. it has been a VERY long time since an "unstable" version has released.

Ultimately we all knew.... configure this way, don't do that, save often, have backups configured a certain way etc.
Solid preparation mitigated any potential problems....