tjflory Posted February 12, 2022 Share Posted February 12, 2022 (edited) Greetings. I decided to get caught up with the rest of the world... Ungraded my S3 Advanced License to S5 Pro. During "by the book" S5 install I noticed it appeared to be installing in same folders as S3. Now S3 wont start and appears to be hosed. (Thanks for that BTW LOR) How do I run S3 and S5 concurrently on same computer? Thanks! Edited February 12, 2022 by tjflory Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. P Posted February 12, 2022 Share Posted February 12, 2022 You can't, you will need separate computers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PhilMassey Posted February 12, 2022 Share Posted February 12, 2022 As Mr P says, you can't have them both on the same PC at the same time, but it is pretty quick to go back and forth f you need to go back to fix something. You DO have to do an uninstall of S5 first then re install S3. When you want to go back to S5 again, simply re install on top of S3. As you have noticed the existing folders remain. One more thing. S5 uses a new file format, .LOREDIT instead of LMS. When you import, your LMS files are not changed so you can go back if you have to. With big jump such as S3 to S5 I would be inclined to start from scratch by making a Preview and then use that to import tour old LMS files. Here's a link to get you started. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
canadianchristmas Posted February 12, 2022 Share Posted February 12, 2022 You technically could using virtual machines, or by finding some way of sandboxing them from each other. I'm not sure what sandboxes are available for windows that would allow you to do this.. Docker comes to mind although I've never really worked with it on windows, or with windows containers. But that could be a lighter weight option than a full virtual machine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tjflory Posted February 12, 2022 Author Share Posted February 12, 2022 (edited) Thanks for the replies everyone. I have to ask... why not? I dont mean run both versions at the same time, that could be hard on system resources, just separate installs that I can run either/ or. Its one thing to have your app not play nice with other apps, but to not play nice with your own? SMH I have lots of advanced apps that allow me to have multiple versions installed. Some I can even run at the same time. I dont see where LOR discloses that it will take 2 computers/ Showtime installs to migrate to higher versions. Thanks. Edited February 12, 2022 by tjflory Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
canadianchristmas Posted February 12, 2022 Share Posted February 12, 2022 21 minutes ago, tjflory said: Thanks for the replies everyone. I have to ask... why not? I dont mean run both versions at the same time, just separate installs that I can run either/ or. Its one thing to code so your app doesn't play nice with other apps, but to not play nice with your own? SMH I have lots of advanced apps that allow me to have multiple versions installed. Some I can even run at the same time. I dont see where LOR discloses that it will take 2 computers/ Showtime installs to migrate to higher versions. Thanks. I know I'm probably going to get bashed for saying this... But this was one of the many reasons I switched entirely to xlights back in 2015 after being a long time S3 user up to 2014... I can't speak for windows.. But on mac and linux based systems You can run endless instances, different versions, same versions with different "home" directories configured, etc.. It makes it easy when jumping back and forth between versions or projects, being able to have everything open at the same time with no need to sandbox or use VM's. It can allow you to sequence multiple shows or parts of sequences at once if you're like me with a short attention span. So maybe not what you want to hear, but that is my personal solution. I just find that this gives me more control over what I'm doing. But again there are always VM's and sandboxing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
canadianchristmas Posted February 12, 2022 Share Posted February 12, 2022 To add, it's also nice as I can upgrade my version right before Christmas or Halloween if I want to.. I don't need to worry about a new version having bugs and ruining my show or sequences for whatever reason. As I can keep my old version too. Whereas with LOR people will always tell you to stick with whatever version you are currently using until after the holidays for fear of braking something. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
k6ccc Posted February 12, 2022 Share Posted February 12, 2022 55 minutes ago, tjflory said: I have to ask... why not? I dont mean run both versions at the same time, that could be hard on system resources, just separate installs that I can run either/ or. You would have to get an answer from the LOR developers on that one. Most likely because they all use the same directory structure - my guess. BTW, not being able to have multiple versions of software installed on a computer is not unique to LOR. MANY commercial software programs are the same way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PhilMassey Posted February 12, 2022 Share Posted February 12, 2022 There was also a shift to 64 bit addressing with S5. At some point you have to leave the past behind. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tjflory Posted February 12, 2022 Author Share Posted February 12, 2022 32 minutes ago, k6ccc said: You would have to get an answer from the LOR developers on that one. Most likely because they all use the same directory structure - my guess. BTW, not being able to have multiple versions of software installed on a computer is not unique to LOR. MANY commercial software programs are the same way. 5 minutes ago, PhilMassey said: There was also a shift to 64 bit addressing with S5. At some point you have to leave the past behind. Seems to be in LORs best interest to make transitioning as easy as possible. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
canadianchristmas Posted February 12, 2022 Share Posted February 12, 2022 (edited) 12 minutes ago, PhilMassey said: There was also a shift to 64 bit addressing with S5. At some point you have to leave the past behind. I know... But that came too late. For me personally, my show was growing too fast for LOR software to keep up at the time. I remember having to patch S3 with the 64 bit patch to prevent the clipboard from crashing the sequencer. Furthermore "I think" LOR's pixel editor in S4 and S5's motion effects are based off old xlights / nutcracker source code from 2014 as LOR did buy a copy of nutcracker's source at the time. Of course LOR has added a lot to it with their own development, but for a commercial paid product it just feels so far behind at this point. At the end of the day though, all these programs do is turn lights on and off. I was just sharing what my personal solution to this problem was. Use whatever software works best for you and makes you happiest. EDIT: Ooops I missed the point of the post sorry. Edited February 12, 2022 by canadianchristmas Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
k6ccc Posted February 12, 2022 Share Posted February 12, 2022 44 minutes ago, canadianchristmas said: To add, it's also nice as I can upgrade my version right before Christmas or Halloween if I want to.. I don't need to worry about a new version having bugs and ruining my show or sequences for whatever reason. As I can keep my old version too. When I first read that, my interpretation was that you meant that new versions of xLights never had bugs that would cause a problem - and my reaction was [censored as this is a family forum]. Even the xLights and Falcon developers publicly recommend against any software or firmware updates during show season - unless there is an operational problem that is fixed with the upgrade. However, then I came to understand that you really meant that you could simply go back to the previous (working) version because you could have both loaded at the same time. While true with xLights (as you say), that is not the case with FPP, and for LOR you can always go back a minor version or two within a minute or two. Obviously you can only partially go back and forth between S3 or S4 and S5 since the file format changed with S5. As this is not intended as a xLights vs LOR forum thread, I will leave it at that. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
canadianchristmas Posted February 12, 2022 Share Posted February 12, 2022 1 minute ago, k6ccc said: When I first read that, my interpretation was that you meant that new versions of xLights never had bugs that would cause a problem - and my reaction was [censored as this is a family forum]. Even the xLights and Falcon developers publicly recommend against any software or firmware updates during show season - unless there is an operational problem that is fixed with the upgrade. However, then I came to understand that you really meant that you could simply go back to the previous (working) version because you could have both loaded at the same time. While true with xLights (as you say), that is not the case with FPP, and for LOR you can always go back a minor version or two within a minute or two. Obviously you can only partially go back and forth between S3 or S4 and S5 since the file format changed with S5. As this is not intended as a xLights vs LOR forum thread, I will leave it at that. You're correct. I'm not trying to start a flame war, so I'll leave it at that. This was just my solution that worked for me personally. Nothing more. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. P Posted February 12, 2022 Share Posted February 12, 2022 Personally I use both Xlights and LOR and go back and forth between the two. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jimehc Posted February 12, 2022 Share Posted February 12, 2022 (edited) If LOR used different Registry Entries between the versions - it would be fine to just assign a different program folder by version.. But the Registry entries are shared (the same) for each version.. Edited February 12, 2022 by Jimehc Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Box on Rails Posted February 19, 2022 Share Posted February 19, 2022 I was able to run Both S4 and S5 on one computer by using dual Boots. I had a my original windows 8 version on the HD and when I installed a second 2T SSD drive I loaded windows 10 on that drive. I had S4 already installed on the windows 8 setup that I used for my show. When I took the leap to S5 I loaded it in the Win 8 HD and was unhappy that S4 was gone. so I uninstalled S5 and re installed S4 on the Win 8 drive then I booted up the Win 10 drive and installed S5 on that drive and that gave me operating versions of both S4 and S5 on one computer. Once I got S5 down I never really used the win 8 boot anymore so I ended up reformatting that drive and started using it for a internal back up drive. I'm now use Win 10, S5 only. What you are asking can be done but you have to understand how to create multiple windows boot starts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jimehc Posted February 19, 2022 Share Posted February 19, 2022 (edited) All of this would not be necessary if LOR had used "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Light-O-Rama\Showtime5" as the S5 Software Registry Key Edited February 19, 2022 by Jimehc 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
k6ccc Posted February 19, 2022 Share Posted February 19, 2022 It would likely take a lot more than that. At the very least, each version would need it's own directory structure. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jimehc Posted February 19, 2022 Share Posted February 19, 2022 (edited) Yeah, that is what the issue is.. Even though the directory can be changed from the Default, during the setup & installation process.... Edited February 19, 2022 by Jimehc 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Box on Rails Posted February 20, 2022 Share Posted February 20, 2022 22 hours ago, Jimehc said: All of this would not be necessary if LOR had used "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Light-O-Rama\Showtime5" as the S5 Software Registry Key This is true. I was just sharing one way for tjfiory to use both versions of the software on the same computer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now