I have upgraded to PL9 from 8, and see that I have both listed in Win>Settings>Apps, with folders for each in Program Files. I also have Viewpoint and other PL addons which I used with 8, but two of which can be upgraded at cost to me if I want.
Whilst I will keep both 8 and 9 pro tem, I would like to know if, in future, I decide to uninstall 8 and have only 9 on this machine, there may be any side effects or other unwanted events from doing this? I decided to allow 9 to install to a new folder as I prefer to make sure all works before committing 100%.
Thanks.
New major releases of PhotoLab don’t install on top of (or otherwise interfere with) older releases. Therefore, uninstalling one release version won’t interfere with another. However, the uninstaller will leave files behind just in case you’re going to reinstall that version or add a newer version and want to preserve your database and other configuration data along the way.
If you work on a folder of photos in PhotoLab 9, don’t then try to load that same folder into an older version of PhotoLab for further editing. The opposite will work, however - for example, using PL9 to continue working on photos that were previously edited using PL8 or PL7.
If you are not short on disk space, I would keep PL8 (but perhaps remove previous versions, if you have some), until PL10 comes. I kept PL7 after switching to PL8 just to be safe in case of some catastrophe. After the switch, I never had to use PL7 for “production”, just to test some cases found in this forum. But even early versions of PL8 were quite stable, unlike PL9, e.g. if used with NVIDIA drivers. Technically, it’s really a major upgrade, unlike PL7–>PL8. The current PL9 problems look very complex (DxO/NVIDIA/Microsoft low-level interactions), so fixes may bring some unexpected new bugs. I would advice to wait at least for several months, but maybe I’m too cautious. I’m a standard PL user, to be clear.
Different PL versions use disjoint directories. The only thing common are DOP and XMP files, if you use them. Before using PL9, you may save your DOP files e.g. in a DOP8 subdirectory to be completely safe – see explanation above by @Egregius. I did it for PL7–>PL8 but soon gave up.
Thanks both for the advice/answers. I’ve recently updated my hardware to a bespoke i9 system with 64gb memory and NVIDIA graphics (which seems to work OK), and 3 onboard 2gb SSDs and a 4gb HDD, so I currently have plenty of storage. On my old machine all PP was so slow it was like watching paint dry.
I’ll keep PL8, as the storage overhead is quite small anyway, and as the two versions are “sort of” independent, it’s a useful fallback in case of problems.
I’m quite new to PL, having moved to it as my main resource from other packages which I found good but excessively complex. A well-specced system makes all the difference. I hadn’t realised that the 9 update was quite so large, but I guess that the AI element is a major addition.