Upgrading D|S: How Do I Keep My Older Version?
xyer0
Posts: 6,347
in The Commons
How do I upgrade D|S to the latest public version without overwriting my existing version (4.10)? If you've done this before, please explain. Thanks
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When I went from 4.10 to 4.11 I simply renamed the 4.10 program directory as 'DS Old', installed 4.11. It worked. The I renamed the new program directory as 'DS New', renamed 'DS Old' as the program directory, and it also worked. Repeated the first renaming, and am now using 4.11 with a backup of 4.10.
Keep in mind that I'm a Mac user. Things are probably named differently on another OS.
Open up your Applications folder (or whatever it's called) and drag the Studio folder into the Trash. The Trash is a shielded folder and nothing inside it is going to be messed with. Probably be a good idea to add the version number to the name of the program folder before you start.
Install the new version. Add the version number to the name of the program folder if it isn't already there.
Drag the older Studio folder out of the Trash and put it back in the Applications fodler.
Now, I'm not atogether sure that dragging the Studio folder into the Trash is altogether necessary. But it *does* need to be out of the Applications folder if you are installing a newer version.
And it's a good idea to manually downlod the program installers and keep them in reserve in case it turns out that you need to revert. Sometimes upgrades break things (as I found out when I tried to import an .obj in 4.12. There is no functioning .obj import on a Mac in 4.12).
Just to clarify, you just switch the name between the two to whichever one you want to use at the time?
Are you using Windows?
That sounds like it could be a fairly simple option for using both if it works. :-)
@richardandtracy Thanks for posting, but I'm not certain that I understand. Would you mind re-reading your post and making it clearer?
@JOdel Thank you for your explanation. Now, where do I find and how do I download the program installers (since I would assume that I would need them in order to install in the first place)?
You can rename and use both in Windows; no idea if that works on the Mac
There can - potentially - be issues to doing it, but haven't seen any so far.
I have others that I've saved, but will delete them eventually.
I like options when I'm creating backups.
Thanks, @nicstt, for the confirmation and the screenshot.
I said what I wanted, they way I wanted. I have 2 versions that I can swap between by changing directory names. And I tested it. Never needed to since it works.
You might want to keep a copy of the installation files, if, for any reason, you need to re-install the older version. DIM can only hold one version at a time, it deletes the previous one if you ever download a new version. That's for all DAZ Studio and associated files, and any plugins that are Studio version-dependent, because you won't be able to get them again.
Yup. The down side is that it is only the public release versions that can be found for manual download. Betas seem to be DIM only.