VNTI Is Dead
The golden age of Vector NTI has ended, and free software licenses are no longer available to academics. This move has been disturbing to many, and support for deactivated licenses haven’t been the best so far. But after sending a plea to the tech support services associated with VNTI, they’ve come through with some help.
To answer an oft answered question, DNA/RNA/Protein sequences CANNOT be exported after a license is expired. I know, I know, bad programming practice and bad PR practice. BUT if your data is locked in you can get a temporary license to export everything. For DNA / RNA molecules you can export into GenBank, EMBL, and FASTA file formats. For protein sequences you can export into GenPept, SWISS-PROT, or Protein FASTA format. File export DOES NOT work for Enzymes, Oligos, Gel Markers, Citations, BLAST Results, or Analysis Results. Those of you with extensive Oligo libraries will want to contact Tech Support directly for assistance in exporting or moving these files. Sorry guys. It may or may not be supported.
Exporting DNA/RNA Molecules
- Open your VNTI Database.
- Go to ‘DNA/RNA Molecules’ from the drop down box.
- Select all the molecules you want to export. For everything, select one molecule and either press CTRL+A or use ‘Edit’ -> ‘Select All’.
- Go to ‘Edit’ -> ‘Copy To’ -> ‘File…’. Make sure to choose the format you want. If you want all three, just repeat the process for each one.
Exporting Protein Sequences
The process is identical to exporting DNA / RNA molecules, except the Protein Molecules library must be used.
Getting a Temporary License
To get your temporary license e-mail Technical Support at bioinfosupport[AT]invitrogen.com. In your message just explain that you’ve been a user of the VNTI free license, but the license expired and you need a temporary one to export all your data.
Now, I’m glad that Life Sciences / Invitrogen has come through with some help for the community. Do I agree with the change in marketing? No. Do I think the transition was handled gracefully? No. But they could have elected to lock everyone’s data in permanently, and have instead elected to extend the olive branch. Hope this helps some of your out there with trapped data.
