Betas and desktop settings

[henryg]

I haven't tried a beta for a while, and it is SO annoying to find that installing one still overwrites my desktop settings. Why can't you preserve the settimgs? Or allow export and import?

[DigitalVisuals]

4 minutes ago, henryg said:

I haven't tried a beta for a while, and it is SO annoying to find that installing one still overwrites my desktop settings. Why can't you preserve the settimgs? Or allow export and import?

Normally   the beta install it self as standalone and not overwriting other settings.    I have not that experience and use 1.7.3.481 and 1.8.0.555 with any problems

[walt.farrell]

25 minutes ago, henryg said:

I haven't tried a beta for a while, and it is SO annoying to find that installing one still overwrites my desktop settings. Why can't you preserve the settimgs? Or allow export and import?

It uses a completely different set of settings, to ensure that the beta goes not interfere with the retail version.

Your retail version (1.7) settings should still be there, and working just fine in 1.7.

[henryg]

When I ran the beta it updated (and I recall it saying it was doing so) the installed non-beta app, and my desktop settings are gone. My macro library was not overwritten, and I had saved my keyboard shortcuts. If it updates, then all settings should be preserved IMO!

Can you please tell me where the Photo app stores my preferences (registry, sql/ite, ini etc), as potentially I can get the settings from an old disk image - and no I don't want to revert to that image, it's too old.

Not the end of the world but I'm not best pleased.

[henryg]

Some further digging finds 2 AppData folders

C:\Users\henryg\AppData\Roaming\Affinity\Photo\1.0 (Beta)\user

C:\Users\henryg\AppData\Roaming\Affinity\Photo\1.0\user\

so do these contain my settings?

But definitely not 2 program installations, ALTHOUGH 2 show under add/remove programs.  And the last version on my PC was definitely a 1.7 non-beta version, although I have installed beta versions previously.

Something has got messed up.

[HVDB Photography]

9 minutes ago, henryg said:

so do these contain my settings?

Indeed

9 minutes ago, henryg said:

But definitely not 2 installations

Definitely  yes ..

C:\Program Files\Affinity\Affinity Photo
C:\Program Files\Affinity\Photo Customer Beta
 

Hubert

 

 

[henryg]

20 hours ago, HVDB Photography said:

Indeed

Definitely  yes ..

C:\Program Files\Affinity\Affinity Photo
C:\Program Files\Affinity\Photo Customer Beta
 

Hubert

 

 

That may be the case for you, but it is NOT for me.  On my pc C:\Program Files\Affinity\Affinity Photo\ contains only a Common folder in which resides a single file, Thumbnail.dll

I have also done a global search for eg Photo.exe which confirmed that only one copy exists; at C:\Program Files\Apps\Affinity\Photo.exe - I do not use the default location.

I concede that something odd may be happening, but please do not assume that what I say is incorrect.

[carl123]

18 minutes ago, henryg said:

only one copy exists; at C:\Program Files\Apps\Affinity\Photo.exe - I do not use the default location.

May be relevant to your problem

Any reason not to use the default location?

[walt.farrell]

30 minutes ago, henryg said:

I have also done a global search for eg Photo.exe which confirmed that only one copy exists; at C:\Program Files\Apps\Affinity\Photo.exe - I do not use the default location.

It sounds, then, as though you intentionally installed the beta executable on top of the retail executable.

That is not appropriate. All Affinity applications must be installed in separate folders.

[Mark Ingram]

@henryg, if you overwrite the retail version with the beta version, then you will only have 1 version of the application. Therefore only 1 copy of the settings. 

 

[henryg]

Guys,

1. I have a structure for my programs which I follow, and AF gives me the option so why not use it?;
2. A beta should not update/upgrade a non-beta IMO if that will cause problems;
3. I have settings in two locations although the beta (correctly) only sees its settings;
4. And as I said, the Windows uninstaller sees 2 installations even though only one exists, so it seems likely that the beta installer has caused a problem; and
5. ISTM that I should probably uninstall the beta, delete all residual settings/folders I can find, and start again.

I'm not trying to be difficult or flame anyone!

 

[walt.farrell]

4 minutes ago, henryg said:

I have a structure for my programs which I follow, and AF gives me the option so why not use it?;

You can install the products where you want, as long as Photo, Designer, and Publisher are each in their own directory, and as long as Photo Beta, Designer Beta, and Publisher Beta are also in their own directories. So, if you have all 6 applications, that's 6 directories you need to install into.

You do not need to install them into C:\Program Files\Affinity as the applications would prefer. You can put them in other directories on C or on other locally-attached drives.

However, wherever you install them you will probably still find some information installed into C:\Program Files\Affinity\Common and into C:\ProgramData\Affinity, if I remember correctly.

[emmrecs01]

@henryg

Just to follow up and confirm what @walt.farrell has just written: I have all six products installed in D\:Program Files\Affinity\..., NOT C:\, and all exist without interference with each other (each has its own, independent installation directory within the main "Affinity" directory) and run normally.  Each set of user settings etc., for each app, beta and release, also has its own separate directory so that any updating of this data CAN only occur when a new version of either the beta or the release is installed and then will affect ONLY ITS "OWN DATA".

53 minutes ago, henryg said:

A beta should not update/upgrade a non-beta IMO if that will cause problems

Indeed, it should  not and, unless the user chooses an installation location that is ABSOLUTELY IDENTICAL for both release and beta, it does not.

Jeff

[carl123]

1 hour ago, henryg said:

4. And as I said, the Windows uninstaller sees 2 installations even though only one exists, so it seems likely that the beta installer has caused a problem;

The Windows uninstaller sees 2 installation because you installed 2 different apps (released and beta).

The fact that you choose to install the beta in the same directory as the released version simply means that you overwrote the existing files in that directory but by doing that you do not tell the uninstaller to first uninstall the release version so the uninstaller thinks it still exists even though it has been completely overwritten by the beta and is now virtually non-existent. 

[Mark Ingram]

22 hours ago, henryg said:

Guys,

1. I have a structure for my programs which I follow, and AF gives me the option so why not use it?;
2. A beta should not update/upgrade a non-beta IMO if that will cause problems;
3. I have settings in two locations although the beta (correctly) only sees its settings;
4. And as I said, the Windows uninstaller sees 2 installations even though only one exists, so it seems likely that the beta installer has caused a problem; and
5. ISTM that I should probably uninstall the beta, delete all residual settings/folders I can find, and start again.

I'm not trying to be difficult or flame anyone!

 

1. Having a system is fine, but I'd suggest your system needs a little tweak, as what you've done here is overwrote one application with another. Both installers write a series of executable files (.exe and .dll) that are specific to the version you are installing. So in your case, you had 1.7.3.x versions on disk, then told the beta installer to copy over the top of these with the 1.8.0.x versions. At this point the 1.7.3.x versions are gone forever.

2. There was no update or upgrade here, you overwrote the files. It's like when you save a file in a program over the top of an existing file, it doesn't update or upgrade the existing file, it just overwrites it (though admittedly the program would probably warn you're going to overwrite the file).

3. You have two lots of settings because you would have ran the retail version first, then installed the beta over the top of the retail version, then ran the beta version which would have generated a new settings folder.

4. The Windows uninstaller sees 2 applications because you installed 2 applications. Only 1 exists because you overwrote application 1 with application 2.

5. You may be able to uninstall the beta (which will probably leave an empty directory), and then repair the retail version (which should hopefully copy everything back). 

 

Hopefully this makes things a little clearer for you, if not, feel free to ask any questions. My suggestion would be to not change the installation directory of an application unless necessary.