Do any of you have first hand experience running both 5.1.x and 5.99 installed on same Win64 machine?
If so, is there anything specific to be careful about?
I need to have 5.1.x for maintaining my projects, but would like to play with 5.99 a bit to see what to expect and to take part of testing (debugging) the software.
I know about the projects once opened and saved in 5.99, that will not open in 5.1.x (at least, not directly). But other stuff like shared folders (?), environmental paths, etc.?
As Linux uses totally different underlaying OS architecture, I expect Windoze may have its own quirks.
Works as advertised. 5.99 will have it’s own configuration (derived from V5). I recommend duplicating the libraries though so that V5 uses one set of libraries and V5.99 uses another set of libraries. Both have changed the format
Running several KiCad versions on the same Windows machine is relevant. I do it all the time. Just make sure you install them in different directories and never set the environment variables. The Start menu instructions are also still valid, but that’s the problem in the installer, not in KiCad (it has been reported).
I recommend starting from scratch and not copying the settings to 5.99 from 5.1 when it asks. And indeed most users should use the newer libraries with 5.99. This works best if old projects aren’t migrated. It would be even possible to set KICAD_CONFIG_HOME as described in the FAQ article and have two instances of 5.99: one with old libraries for migrated projects, one with new libraries for new projects.
Thanks for the info. I mostly work using my private libraries, just started some Cleanup since part of my libs do remember times of me using BZR 3256…
Just checked the Environmental variables, don’t have the “KICAD_CONFIG_HOME” variable set at all (running 5.1.8). Is it optional (used only with multiple versions installed)?
You should also make a copy of these libraries and use one instance with V5 and the other with V5.99. The file formats have changed and while V5.99 can read V5 file format anytime you’ll save it will save in new file format. And V5 cannot read the new format.
While this is well known for symbols where the format has changed significantly, it also holds true for footprints where the changes were smaller.
Yes, it’s completely optional and manual. The purpose of it is to allow custom runtime configuration folder location. From 5.99 onward it’s not needed for parallel installations of different versions, but can still be used for custom setups like two instances of the same version with different configurations.
@eelik one more approach to Start menu.
Assume I use stable 5.1.8 and daily install new 5.99
I have put Read only attributes on my Start menu items (pointing to 5.1.8), so they’re not overwritten by 5.99 install. I run my 5.99 from it’s dedicated “home” folder containing launcher *.bat, libraries, projects etc.
