Version 4.8 and 4.9 on the same PC
wdohm
Posts: 6
I tried to install Studio 4.9, but the installation program wants to deinstall Studio 4.8. I want to have both on my PC. Is there any way for this?
Post edited by wdohm on
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Normally, the only way would be to install the BETA version of DS 4.9.
You can download the BETA here: http://www.daz3d.com/daz-studio-beta
and information about the BETA and what to do to install it can be found here: http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/68570/daz-studio-pro-beta-version-4-9-0-61-release-candidate-2
Yes, it is possible to have multiple _non Beta_ 64 bit versions of DS on the same PC.
Here is a screen capture of my notebook PC showing (__3__) different _non Beta_ 64 bit versions of DAZ Studio running at the same time on one PC !
and each was installed using DIM !
How is it done, you ask? Simply install the second version to a different Program Files folder on another drive.
First Be sure that you are not running Studio when you do the install. (DAZ3D has said many times; _____You should not install DS while it is running - that is likely to corrupt some files.______***
What we need to do is tell DIM to install in a different location rather than the default 'system drive:Program Files' folder.)
1. You have already an existing version installed to the default location (4.8 - ?).
2. Create a new folder called 'Program Files' on an external or a flash drive. ( M: in my case ).
3. Then in the Settings window - Installation Tab in DIM, change the installation destination for 64 bits to that drive; and folder. My example - M:/Program Files' folder. (click the gear icon in the top right corner to access Settings),
4. Click the Green Accept button.
5. Then Select the version you want to install (4.9) in the Ready to Install tab and click the green Start Queue button.
6. then DIM will install the new version of Studio there and NOT overwrite the version installed in the default location.
7. Close DIM.
8. Then navigate to the the folder inside the Program Files folder and start Studio. You may want to create a shortcut on your desktop.
You could also start your existing version to see that everthing is working ok and look at the differences.
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An interesting side effect is that you can take that external drive to another PC that has Studio installed and the external version will run on it as well. Giving you a portable version of Studio, sort of. You can have multiple versions running at the same time and compare them.
For those that don't want to use DIM, I think you could do it manually by just changing where you install it to a different 'drive:/Program Files' rather than the default location. Since that is all I really did with DIM.
Although I have not tried it.
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BTW, I don't have a MAC but I think a similar approach should work there.
For those badmouthing DAZ3D for allegedly forcing people to only setup things the default DAZ way, I will point out that the flexibility to use a different installation location is built into DIM in the settings section.
--- If you have already installed 4.9 and it overwrote the 4.8 version , you can use the System Restore facility of Windows to rollback to the previous version. Obviously, you must have a copy of the 4.8 installer to reinstall it if it was overwritten by 4.9.
I hope that helps y'all. Happy Rendering.
RainbowArtist - I shall worship at yer feet forever and ever - you are a life-saviour. Plain 'thank you' is not enough. After days of agonizing whether to take the plunge and get on with the 4.9 thingy or stick to my trusty and reliable 4.8, you brought the light at the end of the DAZ tunnel. It took less than a minute, from the folder creation on the external drive, DIM install, automatic content database migration (not a hitch - nothing, nada, everything was there and in its right place, just the way I had it in 4.8 - even the layout and the panes were identical) to the shortcut on my desktop (automatically created side by side the 4.8.)
Tested both versions, and yep, they both work like a song.
You are my hero.
2nd this. I am going to try it over the weekend when I get a bit of extra time.
If you're on Windows, will this result in separate Windows registry entries for the two different versions?
And different usage in the AppData directory?
As far as I can tell - no to both. As far as the products are concerned they are both the current release of Studio4.exe; that's why DAZ set up DIM to handle the beta as a seperate package.
The best bet for now would be to stay on 4.8 and use DIM to install the public beta - which was updated to match the actual 4.9 release.
Thumbs up, liked, faved, or whatever... :)
(...though I needed to rename my daz Uninstallers directory, as it was finding the old version there and wanting to uninstall it)
Y'all are welcome. Glad I could help.
FYI, I don't see any duplication in the Registry or AppData. Windows seems to be responding to the multiple versions, as just multiple instances of one program, which it already does fine with just a single version anyway. Which is normal behavior, obviously sharing Studio resources among versions.
The only difference I notice is the lack of addon plugins in the recently installed versions. Which is understandable and easy to correct by manual install.
Now hypothetically, some people might encounter problems depending on their particular hardware/software configuration. But I don't see any multiple Studio related issues, just the known bugs with Smart Content & DAZConnect. Which hopefully will be solved shortly.
I'm interested in doing this. Does it need to be an external drive? I have multiple internal solid state drives I can use, so that would be prefered. I do have an external, but it already has a Daz Studio library on it. So if I try this on that drive, would it mess up that external library? Also, does this work for Windows 10? I absolutely want to keep my 4.8 intact.
Does running Daz from an external impact performance any? I suppose in a pinch I could coonect one SSD as an external, I have the adapter to do it.
How much of a difference would i be to do this versus the BETA?
Sorry for the questions. I don't don't want to screw up my library.
Thanks a lot. I always wanted to upgrade to 4.9, but was afraid that something doesn't work the intended way (I use some special scripts) as in Daz 4.8.
Now I can take this step...
From a quick test it doesn't seem to work with the manual installers, and that appears to be exactly the problem wdohm ran into- it detected a previous installation and insists on uninstalling it before proceeding (as per screenshot). I cancelled at this stage.
My simple test: I already have DS4.8 64-bit installed on a separate disk partition at drive:/DAZ/Studio4(64)/ and I tried to manually install the 64-bit general release of DS4.9.4.117 (DAZStudio_4.9.4.117_Win64.exe).
N.B. In my experience using a manual installer for DS4 32-bit wouldn't require you to uninstall a DS4 64-bit, neither would a manual installer for DS4 64-bit require you to uninstall a DS4 32-bit. It only seems to be when the manual installer detects a previous DS4 installation of the same bitness (i.e. 32 or 64) that it requires you to uninstall first.
I can also confirm that a slight variation of RainbowArtist's method seemed to work for me, and I have DS4.8(64), DS4.9(32), and DS4.9(64) all installed on one machine (plus DS4.9 32-bit and 64-bit betas) and they all seem to work, at least so far.
When using the EXE installers, You can simply move the previous version 'out-of-the-way' with folder renames (e.g. move DS48 to DS48.OFF) just before letting a new installer 'remove' the older version, and it usually chugs along just fine with the new install, even though it can't find the old one to uninstall, etc. Obviously, registry pointers all get updated to the most recent install, but that's usually OK. Then I move the old versions to a folder with a good name (DS48x32) and adjust my paths/'shortcuts' to find it. Works so far.
Remember that right after installing the DS EXEs (32/64), you also need to install the various version-specific DS plugin EXEs (32/64) as well (decimator, dynamic cloth, alembic, mimic, goz, photshop bridge, ? that should all have the same last last number in the version quad - e.g. 4.8.2.58 - the 58 matters.) that you get/got from the product library. If you don't have the old matching version EXE's for those, you might be able to extract and manually put DLLs from the DIM zips in the plugins folder, or use the DIM to install those elements. It gets kind of ugly if you don't have all the parts, but the core installs fine. Be aware that if you didn't get/save these older plugin versions before the updates are downloaded in DIM, or the links updated in your product library..., the only way to get old ones is via DAZ support, and I don't know how receptive they are to such requests.
Note that as many have said, all EXE versions share the same user's .../AppData/Daz Studio/... settings folder(s), so this is something to be aware of. I know GenX and probably other scripts/plugins use that space too.
Be aware and wary - This also works with the DS core content (move it out of the way with a version-specific rename), and a new core-content folder will appear with the new install. The core content is fairly small, and contains DS-specific utils and some shaders (no user content), so keeping one version for each version install isn't that expensive. But coordinating content is a whole different ball of wax that depends on the user's own setups. I keep a separate DS core content folder for each version (renamed right after the EXE install), and have my normal user content in a completely different location(s). This means when I run the various versions of DS, I have to keep all core content versions available in my content library, or remember to 'mount' or load up the right version each time I start that DS version. Clear as mud? Way to big a concept to really cover here, so please be careful with your content merging and overlapping. Backups are your friend. So is renaming the DS core content folder after each EXE install, so you can keep track of each, and find/use the right one later. ug. Newer version have IRAY stuff, older versions don't, so it'll become clear that the DS core content/utils installs actually do have some differences that may matter. Again, careful.
I've considered creating version-specific copies of that settings directory, and using a bat-file for each version to move them and the core content directories around before starting DS and then back when exiting, but I haven't had enough (any?) problems with the shared settings to inspire that chore yet.
Not sure why DAZ doesn't let us do this more easily when they won't keep their paid-for plugins updated. Were it not for the older plugins that stop working, I'd hardly have need to bother with all of this. (I'd probably spend more money on content and do more art, rather than hack at DS installs... anyone @DAZ listening?)
odd,
--ms