Can someone tell me the right way to run multiple Vassal versions in Windows. When I install a new version of Vassal it seems to overwrite my old one. In Linux it’s easy, but not sure what the standard practice is in Windows.
Obviously, this is important since many modules were tested in earlier Vassal versions that may be necessary to install to run the module and it seems a little excessive to re-install for each module variance.
When you install Vassal on Windows, there’s a Custom option. This gives you a list of all of your Vassal installations and you can decide or not decide to uninstall any that you wish.
Ah, cool, thank you. I knew I was missing something.
It seems there is something more to this problem. Even though I re-installed the latest version of Java, rebooted and re-installed the Vassal engine, the creation of a desktop shortcut failed, as did all menu references to the application. Also, the “remove or keep” functionality in the installation custom menus show no content.
I did all this from a user-level account, not admin. This is proper security in my opinion, but I realize most Windows users probably don’t do this. I did supply an admin password for the installation of course.
I personally can get by with what I have by going into the programs folder and creating links to each installed version of Vassal. But, I suspect this could be throwing regular Windows users for a loop if it is something that affects more than just my machine.
Installing Java, reinstalling Java, uninstalling Java—none of these will have any effect on Vassal 3.3 or later on Windows and are a waste of effort. From 3.3, Vassal on Windows is bundled with the Java it uses. Whatever Java you do or do not have installed isn’t relevant.
What to do next depends on how strongly you feel the need to troubleshoot this. Look in Add/Remove Programs. Are there other Vassal installs there?
My only interest in this is to see if there are Windows users who are having problems that they aren’t speaking up about. I have come across a few of them (I can tell you who offline) who carp about Vassal. Normally, I write this off as technical incompetence. But having experienced this issue myself. I thought I should speak up in case there are shy Windows users having a related problem but aren’t confident enough to speak up without company.
I just don’t want any non-technical Windows users to abandon Vassal because they don’t know what to do when they don’t have their normal icon-based way of starting Vassal after install.
But, again, maybe it’s only me.
I will see if anything changes when I install from an admin account. I will also look at my Add/Remove programs to see what that looks like.
Thanks for confirming this. I had read it recently somewhere in the forum but wasn’t confident enough in the information to NOT reinstall Java at the time.
OK, I think this is basically resolved, but I want to give you the details just in case it matters.
I logged in to my admin account, for the first time in ages. What I found was that the installs that I had done were all there! The desktop shortcuts to both versions of Vassal I had installed were present. Also, the shortcuts for both versions were also present in a “Vassal” folder in the start menu. So, in the admin account, everything was as it should be.
Then I go back to my user account and everything is missing, no desktop shortcuts, no start menu folder or shortcuts. At this point, the evidence strongly suggests that installing outside of an admin account is the issue.
My guess is that probably 2% of Windows users don’t run an admin account as their standard. So, this is probably not something that needs any attention. But, I thought I should share since your perspective is broader than mine on the use cases.
My apologies for the distraction.
I can’t say with any certainty what happened without seeing what you did, but what you’ve observed isn’t typical for Windows installs.
Thanks for the follow-up @uckelman. I’m good to go and I don’t think it is likely an issue for most Win users.