Does V5 have to overwrite on install?

Software
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This is only for Windows so far. Some of the steps might need expanding. But it works on Win7/64 and recent nightly (after June 28). Older nightly builds do not assume the correct default paths, and you would need to setup the paths manually.

Installing KiCad v4 and v5 side by side

Refer to https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Rq8i2Ay7qpGpffaj-AQmE-Xp88ikHhgyt0Ygpi8717o/edit# for more details.

Assumptions:

v4 installed in default location (C:\Program Files\Kicad)
v4 config is in C:\Users\MyUserName\AppData\Roaming\kicad
v4 environment variables are set to defaults: (C:\Program Files\KiCad\share etc)

  1. Make a note of the current env vars

  2. Delete all KiCad related env vars from system and user environment (Control Panel)

  3. Install KiCad v5 to C:\Program Files\Kicad5

  4. Create a shortcut for v5. The default shortcut will use the v4 config, so create shortcut with
    cmd.exe /c "set ^"KICAD_CONFIG_HOME=C:\Users\MyUserName\Documents\kicad5\^" && start /d ^"C:\Program Files\kicad5\bin^" kicad.exe"

give it a name “KiCad v5”

  1. The v5 installer will have removed the v4 shortcut.
    Create a shortcut for v4:
    "C:\Program Files\kicad\bin\kicad.exe"

give it a name “KiCad v4”

  1. Start KiCad v4 and make sure the env vars are still correct. If not, edit C:\Users\MyUserName\AppData\Roaming\kicad\kicad_common

  2. Start KiCad v5 and check it is correctly setup.

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