Audacity Forum

If I download a newer version of Audacity, should I first uninstall the older version or will the new version “overwrite” the older one and clean out all the stuff related to it?

If by "new' and "old" you mean Audacity 1.2 and Audacity 1.3, neither. Both versions will install at the same time and Audacity 1.3 will run with the assumptions and preferences of 1.2. You can't run both versions at once and Audacity 1.3 Projects will not open in 1.2.

If you have a damaged Audacity 1.2, you can create some serious problems by installing 1.3. There are ways to clean everything out and start over, and reinstalling isn't one of them. Audacity 1.2 kept preferences in the Dreaded Windows Registry. Audacity 1.3 doesn't, but it is Registry Aware.

This is one of the reasons we urge people to use Audacity 1.3 and forget 1.2 ever existed. Audacity 1.2 is no longer supported, patched, corrected, or improved.

Koz

Thank you Koz.

As far as I know, 1.2 is not damaged but I haven’t tried to use it in a long time….several years. I tried to use it today and noticed that it would not accept wma files. I Googeled and found that 1.3 would accept this format (wma) for editing. I would like to download 1.3 but I am still not clear about my question. Should I first completely uninstall 1.2, clean everything out and start over before downloading 1.3?

PS

This is unimportant but I can’t help but be curious.
I received the post notice from buanzo and the post is signed Koz. Are you the same person? Are you buanzo and your signature Koz? Forums are always a bit of an enigma to me.

Any e-mail messages or notifications that are sent by or through the forum software will come from Buanzo, because he is the main administrator for the forum which makes him the registered sender for the servers mail system. Unless Koz has a really big secret, he is not Buanzo

kozikowski wrote:Audacity 1.2 is no longer supported, patched, corrected, or improved.

Audacity 1.2 is no longer being developed, so no bugs or issues in it will be addressed. It is old (it predates Windows Vista SP1 and Windows 7).

1.2 is most definitely supported, in the sense that while it remains a current release, we will support users who continue to use it. For anyone that is interested, 1.2.6 on Windows has received some 7 million downloads since April 2010, against 4 million for 1.3.12.

We will obviously point out the benefits of using the latest 1.3 Beta for its enhanced features, and continue to state that 1.3 is the "best" version (on the whole) for Windows Vista, 7 and OS X 10.6.



Gale

I don’t understand this post.
My question was:
Should I uninstall 1.2 before downloading 1.3?
I didn’t get an answer and could not find one in FAQs.
So I uninstalled 1.2 and downloaded 1.3
I have subsequently posted other questions about wma files and, so far, no response.

jmdraft wrote:I am still not clear about my question. Should I first completely uninstall 1.2, clean everything out and start over before downloading 1.3?

I think Koz has largely answered that. You can have 1.2 and 1.3 installed on the same computer, and run one or the other. Many people do this, so as to try 1.3 out before uninstalling 1.2.

It is perfectly fine to keep 1.2 indefinitely, though as Koz said, it will not open any Audacity projects that you have saved in 1.3 Beta.

The first time you run 1.3, it will scan the Windows Registry for 1.2 settings which are also used in 1.3, then use those 1.2 settings. Occasionally, this produces conflicts and the 1.2 settings may not get applied correctly in 1.3. If that happens we do *not* recommend removing the 1.2 Audacity settings in the Registry, if that is what you mean by "cleaning out". Just run the uninstaller for 1.2.

If 1.3 settings get messed up you can reset them to 1.3 default values (after which 1.3 will totally ignore the 1.2 Registry settings) by editing the audacity.cfg settings file down to a single line:
You can read more about how Audacity manages its settings here:
http://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/Audacity_Preferences



Gale

jmdraft wrote:My question was:
Should I uninstall 1.2 before downloading 1.3?
I didn’t get an answer and could not find one in FAQs.

I've answered you above, though I think if you read between the lines of what Koz said, he pretty much answered you.

The Audacity home page says "You may install Audacity 1.2.6 and 1.3.12 on the same machine." Very few people have difficulty with that, to the point I doubt it justifies a FAQ at the moment. If you have too many FAQs, people will say "there are too many, I can't find what I want". Seriously. When we get Audacity 2.0 out however and large numbers migrate (we hope) from 1.2, I think there may be a better case. If so, some of the older FAQs could be dropped to make way.

jmdraft wrote: I have subsequently posted other questions about wma files and, so far, no response.

I will take a look to see if there are any of your posts which are still unanswered. But please bear in mind we are all volunteers, and that Audacity is free. If you buy a $300 equivalent to Audacity, you will get one-to-one support by e-mail (which we do not have the resources to offer) but you will not get your answer in a couple of hours even there,



Gale

Thank you for your reply.
Now I understand.
I apologize for being such a dummy but the condition came with the genes.
I realize that this question is in a different topic but can you direct me to instructions for importing and editing wma files?