install multiple versions of Thunderbird

User Help for Mozilla Thunderbird
Post Reply
User avatar
nodnolse
Posts: 47
Joined: November 20th, 2004, 9:42 pm

install multiple versions of Thunderbird

Post by nodnolse »

](*,) Hi to all,

I use -no-remote for multiple instances of Thunderbird profiles since years. Now I would like to install different versions of Thunderbird, for instas version 30 and latest version because the latests versions don't accept addons that for me are very important. Until now i used a portable version but seen that my emails are like 120.0000 an many of are heavy, The portable version crash often especially during complex researches. At the moment to solve the problem I use a virtual machine, but the steps to switch on the vm, launch Thunderbird are very long in more Thunderbird on vm it is very slow less reactive.

For these reasons I would like find a way to launch at least 2 different versions of Thunderbird installed on the same os and user. For me it is fine even if I can launch an use only one version at time. To skip banal answers, I specify that I always have to maintain the latest version for security seen that I use it for work, the others old version are interesting only to process few email with addons that has capability that Thunderbird has not and someone has decided to make that not installable or compatible with the latest version. I don't search polemic, but solutions.

Thanks to all that will try to help me :D

Paolo

PS: the folders are all less than 2GB
User avatar
tanstaafl
Moderator
Posts: 49647
Joined: July 30th, 2003, 5:06 pm

Re: install multiple versions of Thunderbird

Post by tanstaafl »

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Go_back_to_an ... hunderbird has a link to a Mozilla web site where you can download all of the older versions of the setup program. You just need to select custom setup when you install a version, so that you can have them installed in different locations. Then edit each shortcut to add any command line arguments you want such as -no-remote.

Initially you might be able to use the same profile with both versions but long term it will be a problem because the add-on API is drastically changing. I suggest you modify your existing profile to store mail in a common directory outside of the profile. Then create another profile, and copy the contents of the existing profile over its files. That way the two profiles share all downloaded mail, but have their own copy of the settings, address books, and add-ons. You can add a -profile command line argument to the shortcut to specify the location of the profile.

You could try using a symlink to have the second profile use the existing address book files (rather than having its own copy) but I don't recommend it since you will be running two instances at the same time and need to avoid potential problems due to file locks. If you want to keep the two profiles address books in sync I suggest you think about having each of them use an add-on to sync with a remote copy .

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Moving_your_m ... hunderbird
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_Manager
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Running_from_ ... hunderbird
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Sharing_address_books
User avatar
nodnolse
Posts: 47
Joined: November 20th, 2004, 9:42 pm

Re: install multiple versions of Thunderbird

Post by nodnolse »

Thank You, very clear and complete description.
Post Reply