I’m currently running Audacity 2.0.6 with no problems. We recently changed our OS to Windows 10. Since finding this forum I realise that there is a shiny new version of Audacity. I also find that (the latest?) Audacity and Windows 10 don’t necessarily play nicely together.
If I’m having no problems with 2.0.6, is that an indication that I should be okay upgrading to the latest version of Audacity? Is there some way to find out? I don’t want to stuff things up…
The main problem for Audacity on Windows 10 has been badly behaved sound card drivers. As Audacity is a recording editing and processing application, it makes greater demand of the sound card drivers than applications that only play, but unfortunately, for many users that upgraded to Windows 10, their sound card drivers were not fully functional with Windows 10. If Audacity 2.0.6 works on your computer, then it looks like your computer does not have that problem, so you should be OK to update.
As you are jumping a few updates, I’d recommend that you first uninstall you current version, then when you install the new version, look for the option to “Reset Preferences”. Select that option and complete the installation. When Audacity 2.1.2 is first launched you will be asked to confirm resetting the Preferences. This should avoid possible conflicts between the versions.
If for any reason you need to go back to an older version, all old versions are available (right back to version 0.8). That shouldn’t be necessary as Audacity 2.1.2 is fully compatible with work produced in all 2.x versions.