Re: [Gimp-user] Is it possible to run GIMP 2.8.10 and GIMP 2.10.20 simultaneously?

[Techno <techno6 glib com>]

On 2020-08-15 17:09, Ofnuts wrote:
> On 15/08/2020 01:39, Techno wrote:
> > I'm on Windows 10 and have been running GIMP 2.8.10 for some time, but
> > I'd like to try GIMP 2.10.20.
> >
> > I'm not really a graphics person. I have a book titled "The Book of
> > GIMP" that helps me a lot. It covers up to the version I'm using, but
> > it won't cover anything new in GIMP 2.10.20. I don't want to clobber
> > the older version because I will be lost without the advice from that
> > book.
> >
> > If I can't install it so that I can run both versions simultaneously
> > could the newer version be installed and then have it so that I can
> > use one or the other version, but not both at once?
> >
> > Thanks for any advice on this.
>
>
> Yes, you can, but... if you have 2.8 and install 2.10, the 2.8 is
> removed and the 2.8 profile is transformed into a 2.10 one. So have
> bother versions, a technique is to
>
> 1. Make a backup of your Gimp 2.8 profile
>
> 2. Get hold of both Gimp 2.8 and 2.10 installers (you can also possibly
> move your 2.8 installation where the 2.10 installer won't find it)
>
> 3. Install Gimp 2.10
>
> 4. Reinstall Gimp 2.8 (or restore the previous installation)
>
> 5. Reinstate your Gimp 2.8 profile.
>
> Note that when you call Gimp, the first thing the executable does is
> look for an already running instance and pass it the file you want to
> open. So if you can have the two versions on the same system and start
> one or the other when none is running, when there is an instance running
> the executables of both versions will always end up calling the running
> instance. You can run two separate instances by calling Gimp with the
> "-n" parameter.
>
> Recommendation:  create directories in your user space for your add-ons,
> and use Preferences>Folders to add them to the configuration of each
> version of Gimp. That way you can share the add-ons between both 
> versions.
>
> A completely different way is to use a "portable" build for at least one
> of the versions.

Would the portable version of 2.10 not interfere at all with the 2.8 
installation? If so that might be exactly what I need. Thanks.