BizzyBee’s BizzyThoughts

Notes 8 and Notes 7 coexistence

Yesterday I tried to install Notes 8 next to Notes 7. I did some research first and found this post on Notes.Net.

I followed the instructions without really knowing if things have changed since the gold release, so this is what I did (inspired by the release notes):

1. (Obviously) shut down the Notes client and all Notes-related tools, utilities and add-ins running on your computer.
2. Renamed the Notes 7.x directory from C:\Program Files\Lotus\Notes to Notes7.
3. Renamed the entire Notes registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Lotus\Notes to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Lotus\Notes7.
4. Rename the entire Installer registry key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Lotus\Notes\Installer to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Lotus\Notes\Installer7
5. Ran the Notes 8 install program. Accepted the default installation path and program and data directories: C:\Program Files\IBM\Lotus\Notes and C:\Program Files\IBM\Lotus\Notes\Data.
6. Started Notes 8.
7. Renamed the 7.x directory back to the original directory name C:\Program Files\Lotus\Notes.

And guess what: it works! I have 2 separate Notes configurations and they don’t share data, just to be on the save side, so I can do some Notes 8 experiments without screwing up existing data.

The only minor problems I encountered, was the fact that the uninstaller for Notes 7 disappeared, as well as my shortcuts to Notes 7. Why? I don’t know. Maybe I shouldn’t have started Notes 8 in step 6? (it wasn’t really mentioned in the release notes)

Below there’s a screenshot of my desktop with 3 Notes Clients and 2 Domino Designers opened: so many Notes, so little time

How this is possible? I have a MacBook Pro and I run Windows in Parallels, so there’s Notes 8 and Notes 7 Windows versions, and a Notes Client 7 for Mac. IBM, what about the Lotus Notes 8 for Mac?

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9 Responses to “Notes 8 and Notes 7 coexistence”

1. Thomas Bahn says:
   December 29th, 2007 at 11:43 am

   I have installed Notes R5, 6, 7 and 8 (and Domino 6, 7 and on my Windows machine.

   I got into the habit to install them in %ProgramFiles%\NotesX with X is the version number.

   Registry keys: I export HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Lotus\Notes to notesX.reg and rename HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Lotus\Notes to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Lotus\NotesX directly after the installation, as well as
   HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Lotus\Notes to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Lotus\NotesX.

   Then I import all notesX.reg files back into the registry. This is only important for Notes 8, since it uses a license file, which it locates using the registry information.

   And all clients can run concurrently: I have to start Notes 8 Standard first, then all other versions using their respective nlnotes.exe.

2. Thomas Bahn says:
   December 29th, 2007 at 11:45 am

   The sunny boy was the digit 8 followed by a closing bracket.

3. Martin Vereecken says:
   December 29th, 2007 at 5:32 pm

   Hi Thomas,

   Thanks for sharing your technique! But I don’t understand why you export and import the keys, instead of just changing them?

4. Thomas Bahn says:
   December 29th, 2007 at 11:03 pm

   Before installing an upgrade (”point-version”) or a third-party product (like Ytria, Noteshound, DDSearch, etc.) I delete HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Lotus\Notes and rename HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Lotus\NotesX back to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Lotus\Notes (X is the version, I update or install into). In case of an update I additionally rename HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Lotus\NotesX back to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Lotus\Notes.

   Afterwards I export HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Lotus\Notes into a new reg file, rename HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Lotus\Notes to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Lotus\NotesX and import all other reg files.

   This way, all installations are absolutely “clean”.

5. Patrick Kwinten says:
   March 13th, 2008 at 9:35 am

   well I followed these steps and guess what:

6. Patrick Kwinten says:
   March 13th, 2008 at 9:39 am

   well I followed these steps and guess what: ALREADY DURING THE INSTALLATION OF NOTES 8 I GET ERROR MESSAGES LIKE: ERROR 1905 MODULE C:PROGRAM FILES\LOTUS\NOTES\NLSXBE.DLL FAILED TO UNREGISTER + CWPPROO25E: AN UNEXPECTED ERROR OCCURRED WHILE PROCESSING THE PROVISIONING MANIFEST

   SO THANKS IBM FOR SCREWING UP MY WORK-ENVIRONMENT!

   why can those people just not supply an installation-program where you can easily install multiple notes clients beside each other??!!

7. Patrick Kwinten says:
   March 16th, 2008 at 6:46 pm

   DONT FOLLOW THIS SETUP, ONE REASON: YOUR PREVIEW IN WEBBROWSER WILL NOT FUNCTION ANY MORE

8. Chris Hill says:
   August 12th, 2008 at 2:55 pm

   Hi. Does this work OK for 6.5.5 and 8 coexisting ?

   Everything seems to be OK with Notes client but I can’t get Designer 6.5 and 8 running at the same time.

9. Martin Vereecken says:
   August 18th, 2008 at 7:49 am

   Hi Chris,

   I suggest you take a look at Thomas’s article then, it’s a great help: http://www.assono.de/blog/d6plinks/Running-Notes-R5-6-7-8-concurrently

   Regards,
   Martin

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