Installing two different versions of Studio
mcorr
Posts: 1,094
in The Commons
I am wondering what the latest word is on this. I have 4.12.1.118 and would like to also install an older version, like 4.11. Will they play nice, or will they mess with each other? If necessary, how do I gerryrig things so that I can have both living on the same HD?
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You can have a General release and a public Build installed, you cannot (sanctioned) have two versions from the same release channel as they share settings etc., with the potential for bad things to happen as a result.
I have 4.9, 4.11 and 4.12 installed on the same drive, and they all work well. But I've never tried to run different versions at the same time, I can imagine the result's would be akin to Gomez Adams' train set.
How did you manage that?
I've been waiting to hear back from tech support for weeks about getting an installer for 4.10 since my installation is incredibly bugged, DIM deleted my 4.10 installer, and I don't have an RTX card so I can forget rendering with 4.12 (it's slow enough in 4.10 with an 8GB 1070Ti and a single figure + no scenery). I figured I'd at least install 4.12 so I could play around with products and scenes in the meantime, and it threw a fit even though I tried to put it on a separate drive entirely. Wouldn't allow the installation unless I also let it uninstall 4.10 from C:\ in the process.
Rename the program folder Daz Studio - (version number), then install the other one and rename it's folder Daz Studio - (version number), then create seperate icons on your desktop for each version. That works for me and I have 4.10 and 4.11, and both work fine.
I'll give that a try, thank you! :)
Oh golly gosh ... I thought that wasn't "sanctioned" (kind like leaving home without a mask)!
No it's not recommended but it works. I have both 4.10 and 4.11 to choose from as some of the plugins don't work in 4.11.
It's probably not recommended because DAZ only provides support for the latest public release. The reason being, I was once told, is that they don't have the staff to deal with issues in older versions. The same reason why older versions of DS are no longer available for download.
I can understand that. DAZ has limited forum and support staff and most of them probably work remotely in different parts of the world.... one cranky Welsh one living in the middle of nowhere with a threatening shillelagh to knock wayward conversations into line.... no names metioned.
It's worse than that, we're not even allowed to share older versions of Studio among ourselves. I have copies of most, Beta and complete, from 4.7, but if anyone needs a copy I can't provide it.
There's actually a technical reason for not recommending it:
DS uses quite a few technical files installed in AppData/Roaming/DAZ 3D/Studio4 (under windows). Those include at least the definition files for layout, toolbars and menu, but there are probably other things. You can't configure where those files will be set, so those files will be shared by all general release versions of DS you have installed (betas use a different folder), and you'll only have one version of them, installed with the DS version you installed last.
The thing is, sometimes a new version of DS require changes to one or more of the technical files. These changes may not be compatible with one of your earlier versions. Or if you reinstalled an earlier version after the most recent one, the files with the changes will have been overwritten by the older version, and your most recent DS version won't work properly as the changes are not there.
So yes, having multiple versions installed can cause real problems sometimes, that's why it's not recommended.
Having one General release and one Beta installed works fine, as they're been intentionally setup so they don't share any files.