Multiple versions of PhotoStructure installed at the same time

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I installed PhotoStructure 1.1.0 on Windows 10 today, and after reading about all the new features in the more recent 2023 builds, I would like to install one of the more current alphas. Is it possible to have multiple versions installed simultaneously, or would I need to uninstall 1.1.0 to install the alpha?

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My understanding is that the 2023 prealpha builds are not recommended for Windows or Mac just yet, but they work on Linux. If you look around the forum you will see quite a few mentions that 1.1 is the latest suitable version for Win/Mac and the 2023 version for those OSs will arrive once the Linux version ships as stable.

I also believe that if you point a newer PS to the same library directory it will upgrade the library in a way that is not backwards compatible, unless you set it to use a different library directory. But you only just installed 1.1 so I suppose there isn’t much there to preserve to begin with?

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But you only just installed 1.1 so I suppose there isn’t much there to preserve to begin with?

Yeah, that is actually the reason I was interested in trying a different version. I built out my library directory, but the ability to remove images looks to be in only the newer version so it seems like the library will be pretty static (outside of newer images getting added over time). Thanks for the information.

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Howdy, and welcome to PhotoStructure, @leglock !

@underdog is correct–the current prealpha build is not validated for macOS or Windows yet (I’m doing that currently). There are people successfully running the windows build using PhotoStructure for Node, however.

So: the main question: can you run multiple versions of PhotoStructure concurrently?

Answer: yes, ish.

  1. PhotoStructure knows how to upgrade older library databases to support new features.

  2. Unfortunately, this library database upgrade is one-way–older versions can’t “downgrade” from newer libraries.

So: you can use v1.1 on whatever you’d like, and v2023 will be able to read and upgrade those libraries, but you can’t go back to v1.1 for that library instance.

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