Side-by-side Installation allows you to adopt OpenBuildings Designer 2023 without upgrading your current installation of OpenBuildings Designer CONNECT Edition mid-project. 

**If you already have a previous version of OpenBuildings Designer on your machine, OpenBuildings Designer 2023 will install as a separate application.** 

The following instructions are based on the OpenBuildings Designer 2023 readme: 

Home > Installation > "Side-by-Side Installation"

Side-by-Side Installation

From the release of OpenBuildings Designer 2023 onwards, Side-by-Side installation will be supported for Major Releases. Minor Release updates will upgrade a Major Release (install over). A Major release and Minor Release will not be able to sit Side by Side. Users will have the ability to run multiple major releases of OpenBuildings Designer on the same machine. Installation of OpenBuildings Designer 2023 and onwards will by default occur alongside any previous installations. Removing previous versions of OpenBuildings Designer will require a manual uninstall. The application version naming FAQ describing major and minor releases is located here. Bentley Lifecycle Policy | Bentley Systems | Infrastructure Engineering Software Company

With OpenBuildings Designer 2023 available as a Side-by-Side install, its default installation directory and configuration folder are in different locations than previous application versions. In the default installation, you can work on two different configurations defined during OpenBuildings Designer CONNECT Edition and OpenBuildings Designer 2023 installation.

NB: As with all previous versions, the configuration is version specific. Two or more side by side installs cannot share a common configuration. If there is content (dataset or WorkSet files) you wish to carry forward into the newly installed version, you must follow the guidance for migrating and upgrading datasets and worksets. Once upgraded all users should use the same version of the application on a WorkSet.

Default Installation Paths

 OpenBuildings Designer 2023 uses the same installation pattern for its major components as in previous versions, however it includes the release year as a differentiator, to allow side by side installs to take place.

 

 Application Path

 

Configuration path

 

 

Default Preference folder Paths

 The preferences folder location has not changed. "C:\Users\Common\AppData\Local\Bentley\OpenBuildingsDesigner". A preference folder for each installed version is created. It may be possible post installation to copy some of the preferences content from older to new versions, but we advise caution in doing this. The preference folders are indicated using the Major version number in this case "23.0.0."

 

 

Custom Configurations

Care and consideration should be given to instances where network configurations or ProjectWise managed workspaces are employed. We recommend new configurations be created that are separate from those already existing for previous versions of the software. We recommend following the pattern established above by clearly indicating the version or year in paths for clarity and differentiation.

For more information regarding configurations, please refer to refer Documentation.