Upgrade from 15.3 to 18.4

I'm about to bite the bullet and upgrade my Resolve Studio from version 15.3 to the latest 18.4 and have some questions:

1. is it still advised to uninstall the old version before installing a new version (on Windows)?

2. will my 15.3 project databases be automatically upgraded to 18.4 versions (can it jump that 3-version gap?)

Any other tips, tricks, suggestions for this move? (yes, I've backed stuff up and have no work-in-progress).

For a jump that big, it is advisable to uninstall first. Smaller .x updates just overwrote the old system files, but from 15 to 18 there have been major organizational changes to even the system install files; so while installing the new one over the old will still overwrite the old, there will be some old system files from 15 that won't be overwritten (since they organizationally changed location), and will hence potentially conflict with the new install.

Also, I would recommend using some kind of professional uninstaller app to remove registry fragments as well. And as always, save a system restore point before doing anything (this is like backing up your files, which you've already done, but for your system instead).

Resolve will automatically prompt you to update your database once you reconnect your old database in your new install. It will do the 3 version jump no problem.

I'm excited for you man! Resolve 15 was my first real experience with the program after years editing in another, and I gave up in frustration and didn't try again until 16. That's when it was good enough for me to justify a complete switch over—and it's only gotten better since then!

Sent from my motorola razr using Tapatalk

Here's some more detail about some of what Bryant is talking about. In Resolve 16 they made Resolve more compatible with multi-user environments. You should always install it with an administrator account but since 16 you can run the app after installation on a normal account.

Per-user configurations and preferences in DaVinci Resolve 16
=============================================================

Starting from DaVinci Resolve 16, configurations, presets, preferences and other auxiliary files used by DaVinci Resolve will be stored at a per operating system user-level, allowing for greater flexibility and security for multi-user workstations.

Summary of changes:
===================
When you upgrade to DaVinci Resolve 16 and start it for the first time, a copy of your system level global configuration files, layouts, logs and other preferences will be copied into your user folder. The existing system level files will be left untouched and will continue to work with older versions. Any changes made to your system or user level preferences in DaVinci Resolve 16 will not be reflected in older versions.

Disk databases, LUTs, licenses and a few other directories will remain in their original locations.

DaVinci Resolve uses two sets of folders for storing metadata, configurations, presets and preferences:
The Application Support folder mainly contains the the logs directory and other supporting files used by DaVinci Resolve.
The Configuration folder mainly contains user and system configuration files.

The old and new Application Support and Preferences locations for DaVinci Resolve are listed below:

MacOS:
======
The default locations have been moved from /Library/ (in DaVinci Resolve 15 and before) to the $HOME/Library/ folder.
In a standard MacOS setup $HOME corresponds to the path /Users/<username>/

Old Application Support location: /Library/Application Support/Blackmagic Design/DaVinci Resolve/
New Application Support location: $HOME/Library/Application Support/Blackmagic Design/DaVinci Resolve/

Old Configuration location: /Library/Preferences/Blackmagic Design/DaVinci Resolve/
New Configuration location: $HOME/Library/Preferences/Blackmagic Design/DaVinci Resolve/

Windows:
========
The old default locations in DaVinci Resolve 15 and before were in %PROGRAMDATA% - In a standard Windows location this corresponds to: C:\ProgramData\
The new default locations are now the %APPDATA% folder - In a standard Windows installation this corresponds to: C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming

Old Application Support location: %PROGRAMDATA%\Blackmagic Design\DaVinci Resolve\Support
New Application Support location: %APPDATA%\AppData\Roaming\Blackmagic Design\DaVinci Resolve\Support

Old Configuration location: %PROGRAMDATA%\Blackmagic Design\DaVinci Resolve\Preferences
New Configuration location: %APPDATA%\AppData\Roaming\Blackmagic Design\DaVinci Resolve\Preferences

Linux:
======
Depending on whether you used a standard DaVinci Resolve CentOS DVD or a standalone installation, your old DaVinci Resolve location may be /home/resolve or /opt/resolve.
The new default locations are in $HOME - in a standard CentOS installation, this corresponds to /home/<username>

Old Application Support location: /opt/resolve/ or /home/resolve/
New Application Support location: $HOME/.local/share/DaVinciResolve

Old Configuration location: /opt/resolve/configs/ or /home/resolve/configs/
New Configuration location: $HOME/.local/share/DaVinciResolve/configs


Overriding paths:
=================
For custom installations, the following environment variables can be used to override the new locations.
Note that these environment variables need to be set after installation, but before starting Resolve for the first time.

BMD_RESOLVE_SUPPORT_DIR:
The Application support location. If not set, the value defaults to the new Application Support location for each platform.

BMD_RESOLVE_CONFIG_DIR:
The configuration location. If not set, the value defaults to the new Configuration location for each platform.

BMD_RESOLVE_LOGS_DIR:
The location of DaVinci Resolve logs. If not set, the value defaults to $BMD_RESOLVE_SUPPORT_DIR/logs as per the evaluation of BMD_RESOLVE_SUPPORT_DIR above.

BMD_RESOLVE_LUT_DIR:
The location of the LUTs directory. The location needs to be accessible by all users.
If not set, the value defaults to the 'LUT' folder in the old Application Support location. i.e.:
MacOS: /Library/Application Support/Blackmagic Design/DaVinci Resolve/LUT
Windows: C:\ProgramData\Blackmagic Design\DaVinci Resolve\Support\LUT
Linux: /opt/resolve/LUT

BMD_RESOLVE_LICENSE_DIR:
The location of DaVinci Resolve license configuration files. The location needs to be accessible by all users.
If not set, the value defaults to the '.license' folder in the old Application Support location. i.e.:
MacOS: /Library/Application Support/Blackmagic Design/DaVinci Resolve/.license
Windows: C:\ProgramData\Blackmagic Design\DaVinci Resolve\Support\.license
Linux: /opt/resolve/.license

That documentation suggests that the older configuration files aren't actually deleted in the course of the upgrade to 16, by design. So I wonder if the jump to 15 to 18 actually does require an uninstall, any more than 15 to 16.

Was uninstall ever a format recommendation for the larger version jump?

Make backups!!!
of your databases, and possibly, export your projects. Nothing more expensive than regret!
does 15.3 allow you to export projects..ha.. its been so long.. and so many new features since then..

Was uninstall ever a format recommendation for the larger version jump?

I've used Resolve on Windows since version 12. In those years only one upgrade failed because I didn't uninstall first. It was fixed by a clean install. Can't remember which version it was though. Might have been 15 or 16.

From reading Dwaine's replies on the forum I've gathered they recommend uninstall on Windows but it's not necessary on macOS.

The usual recommendation for Windows has been install over, not uninstall. But I wondered about the larger jump.

Make backups!!!
of your databases, and possibly, export your projects. Nothing more expensive than regret!
does 15.3 allow you to export projects..ha.. its been so long.. and so many new features since then..

Yep, export out DRPs. Highly, highly recommended.

Any other tips, tricks, suggestions for this move?

Clean underwear.

Keep a backup of all your old databases in case the old projects don't work as expected when opening in R18. You can always reinstall the old R15 version to work on the projects in the old database if that becomes necessary!

Some users reported bad performance after updating an older database.
If you don't have too many projects, I'd rather export all of them as .drp files and make a fresh database (aka library) under 18. Then import those projects.

Well that seemed pretty painless...

Installed and running... now to find out if there are any problems but I'm optimistic