I am currently running Notes 6.5.5 client and designer on a Windows XP machine. I would like to add Notes 7.0.2 client and designer on the same machine for evaulation purposes. However, the Notes install will not let me specify the Notes folder for installation and attempts to install over my current installation. The install will only allow customization of where Notes is installed if I uninstall my current installation first. Is there a trick to install Notes 6.x and 7.x concurrently on the same machine? I never had this problem with installing Notes 5 & 6 concurrently.
Subject: Concurrent Notes Install
I also need to know this. I don’t have a test machine available and can’t afford to take my email offline to ensure 7.0.2 won’t cause me problems in my live environment. It seems very shortsighted for the installation directory selection to be greyed out, requiring a trial installation to be done over top of a live installation.
Subject: RE: Concurrent Notes Install
This is a possible workaround (not a fix).
Rename the current directory where R6 is installed. Remember to change the settings in notes.ini pointing to the directory.
Now let R7 install run loading into the old directory. If you are using Windows settings for default mail etc, and you want to keep R6 as the “known” Notes, then rename the R7 directory to something new, rename the old R6 directory back (again, fix notes.ini for both).
In this way, I have R5, R6.0 R6.5 and R7 running on the same machine.
Subject: RE: Concurrent Notes Install
That worked like a charm !
Thanks.
Subject: Concurrent Notes Install
It’s too late now, but I think I fixed that before by extracting the content of the zipped executable (the package is a zip) into a folder, editing the setup.ini file and changing OnUpgrade=1 to OnUpgrade=0. It would then let me choose the install folder properly…
Subject: RE: Concurrent Notes Install
It’s not too late for me – I hadn’t tried Rampisad Mukerjee’s workaround yet. I extracted the files from C96F1EN.exe (the Multi-Platform Windows client), changed “OnUpgrade=1” to “OnUpgrade=0” in SETUP.INI, then ran SETUP.EXE. Same problem: both installation and data directory selection are greyed out, with the active locations specified. I tried changing it back; same problem. I also tried invoking “Lotus Notes 7.0.2.msi” directory, with the same result.
Given Rampisad’s solution, I suspected that simply changing the paths in the Registry (specifically, in HKLM\Software\Lotus\Notes) might work. There is a general Lotus\Notes key with “Path” and “DataPath” values, and a subkey “Lotus\Notes\Notes 5” (I’m still running 5!) for my existing version. I changed the general path keys to point to “Notes7” directories and ran the install. Sure enough, the directory selections were still greyed out, but they were the new directories now.
Installation went fine, and initial Internet test emails sent back and forth between the clients worked. (One oddity: I couldn’t run both clients at the same time, probably because each NOTES.EXE checks to see if “NOTES.EXE” is already running. I haven’t tried to see if renaming one of them would allow both to run.) It probably wasn’t necessary, but I changed the general HKLM\Software\Lotus\Notes paths back to my critical older installation, just to be safe.
Anyway, this seems to be the fastest and simplest way to run more than one client, as long as the major version numbers are different. Thanks for the suggestions!
Subject: RE: Concurrent Notes Install
A few additional observations:
I accidentally started my Notes 7.0.2 trial client while still running Notes 5, and it seemed to work fine. Apparently the only problem running both at the same time is that Notes 5 won’t start second, thinking it’s already running if Notes 7 is loaded. No idea if this is also a problem with Notes 6.
The Notes 7 multiplatform WinXP client installation overwrote my Notes 5 Notes+Designer installation data in Windows’ installer. Not friendly.
After checking basic functions, I installed the WinXP-only Notes+Designer 7.0.2 client over top of the Notes-only 7.0.2 multiplatform XP client. (I didn’t want to remove the existing installation, just in case it might affect my live Notes 5.) Oddly, it changed the “HKLM\Software\Lotus\Notes\Notes 5” path settings as well as the “Notes 7” settings. I can’t think of any good reason for this. But it was easily fixed.
Subject: RE: Concurrent Notes Install
To run more than one client at the same time, change your shortcuts to point to “nlnotes.exe” rather than “notes.exe”.
Emily.