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Re: switching between versions 7 and 8

• To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
• Subject: [mg114890] Re: switching between versions 7 and 8
• From: Bill Rowe <readnews at sbcglobal.net>
• Date: Tue, 21 Dec 2010 00:21:39 -0500 (EST)

On 12/20/10 at 12:39 AM, bitbucket at comcast.net (richard i pelletier)
wrote:

>i have seen, from a couple of posts over the years, that this is
>obvious and elementary to many of you, but i could really use a
>little hand-holding. (I have never seen an answer that i could put
>into action.)

>can someone please tell me _exactly_ how to set up two versions of
>mathematica so that i can run either one -- not simultaneously --,
>without having to go change the names of folders?

>i am running version 7 on mac OS 10.6.5 -- i.e. snow leopard. i have
>downloaded version 8. all i want is to be able to run version 8,
>quit it, and then run version 7, quit it, and then run version 8,
>etc.

There really isn't any issue to this. I have both version 7 and
8 running on my MacBookPro with no problems. What I did is as follows:

Before installing version 8, I renamed version 7 by renaming the
installed version from Mathematica.app to Mathematica 7.app.
Strictly speaking this isn't absolutely necessary. I renamed the
installed version so that I could have both versions installed
in the same folder. Additionally, I use LaunchBar to launch
apps. By appending a 7, it is trivial for me to launch the
version I want using the keyboard and LaunchBar.

The above is the only thing I did prior to installing version 8 normally.

There is one other thing you *may* need/want to do. If you have
customized your init.m file for version 7, you may want/need to
customize if further so that portions are executed only for a
specific version.

For example, if you had some code you wanted to execute for
version 7 notebooks but not version 8 you could achieve this by doing

If[$VersionNumber == 7., code]

where code is the code you want executed in version 7. notebooks.

So far, the only issue I have found with my setup is one third
party package I have will not run correctly any more with
version 7. That particular package is tied to my license ID and
since installing version 8, version 7 thinks my license ID is
the value returned by $ActivationGroupID in version 8.