I use Windows 11 64 bit, Audacity 3.5.1
I’d like to install latest Audacity 3.7.7 but if it doesnt work in the way I am accustomed to, I’d like to be able to continue using v3.5.1
Can someone tell me how I can install v3.7.1 with 3.5.1 present on same windows pc?
One version must have a "Portable Settings” folder. Otherwise they will share settings which can be disastrous.
Install the in two different folder names, for example install 3.7.1 in a folder called “Audacity 3-7-1” rather than the default “Audacity”. I have many different versions installed all the way back to 1.0 all in differently named folders.
BTW the latest version of Audacity is 3.7.7
Peter.
thank u for your response
hello peter
Trebor above said “One version must have a "Portable Settings” folder. Otherwise they will share settings which can be disastrous.”
do u have “portable settings” created? If so exactly where do u create one?
I read “portable settings” but I am not clear.
Thank u for responding.
“Create a folder called “Portable Settings” on the USB stick. On Windows this goes at the top level alongside the application and other folders”.
Can u tell me where in Windows is considered the top level?
In my pc, my directory is as follows:
C:\Windows
So should I create “Portable Settings” folder as follows?
C:\Windows\Portable Settings
I don’t need to take Audacity to another device. All I want to do is to install two different versions of Audacity in my pc hard drive. So is “portable settings” something I need to use?
thank u Trebor
No I actually don’t.
I have all the old versions of Audacity as I used to be one of the QA bods on the old Audacity Team before Muse took over the project. I used these old versions for regression testing, so for each test I always purged the Audacity settings folder back to OOTB factory settings.
When I was actively using Audacity on live projects (digitizing my LPs and tapes) I kept a saved version of the settings folder with all my preferences settings in it and restored that when I wanted to do production work.
Peter
thank u for your comments, Peter
I got some courage to install Audacity 3.7.7 by creating a new folder called Audacity 3_7_7 under C:\Program Files.
So now there are two folders: one is Audacity (contains Audacity v3.5.1) and another is Audacity 3_7_7.
So far both versions seem to be functioning properly.
I had saved cofiguration file “audacity.cfg” from v3.5.1
When I copied “audacity.cfg” from v3.5.1 to C:\Users[your user name]\AppData\Roaming\audacity, I forgot that I had to first close Audacity 3.7.7 before doing the copying.
So what I did was to close Audacity 3.7.7 and re-copied my “audacity.cfg” from v3.5.1 to C:\Users[your user name]\AppData\Roaming\audacity.
Was this correct?
Sounds good to me
Peter
“audacity.cfg” is not always backwards compatible.
If there’s no “portable settings” folder both versions of Audacity will use/overwrite the same “audacity.cfg” file in AppData.
If “audacity.cfg” is rendered incompatible (corrupted) Audacity may not even launch.
The further apart in time the versions of Audacity, the greater the chance of incompatibility/corruption,
e.g. if running Audacity v2 and Audacity v3 on the same machine “portable settings” folder(s) are a necessity.
hello Trebor
thank u for your thoughts.
I tried waxcylinder’s method by creating a different folder name for v3.7.7 and then copying my config file from 3.5.1 and everything seems working alright.
thank u peter
The official place for “audacity.cfg”, outwith AppData, is in the “Portable Settings” folder …
Audacity is forwards compatible. Backwards there can be a problem: when you use the older version after using the newer version. If they share the config file in AppData the newer version of the config can be incompatible with the older version of Audacity.
Thank u Trebor. I will keep this in mind if something goes wrong with my current setup.
