When Updating should I uninstall the previous version?

[David40]

I am updating from version 6 to the current version 9. Should I uninstall the old version or just overwrite it?
Thanks

[Stefan]

I am updating from version 6 to the current version 9.
Should I uninstall the old version or just overwrite it?
Thanks

Hi David, welcome.

I don't know.
Generally you can just overwrite the old version, but there are so many things changed in the meantime, i just don't know.

For example since v6.80.0063 - 2008-02-08 there is an startup.ini

+++ Now you can control the application data path used by XYplorer. Up
to now this path was hard-coded to be identical to the application
path. Now you can set it to any location you like by manually
creating and editing a file called "startup.ini" which has to be
located in the application path.

And there was made many modification to adopt the behavior of new Windows TM versions as Vista and W7.

You can wait till the author is back from vacation... and maybe provide some more informations as
* what is the exact version of XYplorer you are using?
* did you use/modify the startup.ini?
* what Windows TM version do you use?
* do you just use XY... or did you made modifications as adding shortcuts, or using User-Defined Commands (UDC) or scripting?

[ogroeger]

Better do a fresh installation. I updated lately from 7 to 9 and had strage effects (e.g. the list icons were missing afterwards).

[Stefan]

Better do a fresh installation. [...]

I think this depends...
if you have highly customize your XYplorer installation, or just collect an bunch of favorites...
you may want to rescue this old settings?

If you "just use" XY without making own modifications... then Yes; just de-install the older version before installing the new one.

If one is unsure then he could just copy the old install folder (and data folder) to an save place before un-installing
and delete them after a few weeks if all went fine.

(How to find the actual data folder depends on the answering some questions i made above)

[ogroeger]

If you "just use" XY without making own modifications... then Yes; just de-install the older version before installing the new one.

Strange advice. If he uses all the default settings where the chances that an update succeeds, then he should uninstall. But when he has many customizings, where the chances that the update mechanisms might fail, then he should try to overwrite?

[Stefan]

If you "just use" XY without making own modifications... then Yes; just de-install the older version before installing the new one.

Strange advice. If he uses all the default settings where the chances that an update succeeds, then he should uninstall. But when he has many customizings, where the chances that the update mechanisms might fail, then he should try to overwrite?

I just don't think that an update would fail only because of own modifications.
Because of miss-configuration: Maybe. But that's an other scenario, not asked here.

[Gandolf]

I've had problems using old ini files that used to work fine, but produce very strange results in later versions of XY. Backwards compatibility is not that good, so if you have older ini (configuration) files they may cause problems with later versions.

[David40]

I had very little customizing so I did a clean install.
I'm having a different issue with memory errors but I'll start a new thread for that.