Forced to uninstall 17 to install Studio-lost files?

I did a lot of work in 17 free version before my card for studio arrived and I don't want to lose that work.
However, when I tried to install studio I got a message saying essentially "a newer version already exists...uninstall it first". Questions:
1. How can the free version I downloaded a month ago (which is 17.0b build 23) be more current than the studio version I just downloaded from https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/produc ... lve/studio (which is 17.ob7)? Did I somehow download an old version or is this an installation bug?
2. Won't uninstall delete Davinci's mysterious file-saving structure and/or some of my files?
3. How can I prevent losing data and get my Studio working?
Thanks!!
John

You should always back things up before updating/upgrading. That's SOP for this industry, regardless of the software you're using.

For Resolve specifically, I favor backing up the Databases and Exporting active projects (creating .drp files).

The 'newer version' warning isn't perfectly accurate in this case, it's just a general warning.

You should be fine Uninstalling the Free version and installing Studio. The normal Uninstall process shouldn't touch your databases. That said, never forget the first paragraph above.

This (having to uninstall free Davinci before installing Studio) turned out to be non-problematic. It was good, though, that I realized that my projects weren't being backed up elsewhere by Davinci (being told to uninstall the free version first got me looking). As it turned out, after I uninstalled the old free version and installed studio, all projects were there just waiting to be enhanced with new Studio effects!

It's wonderful tool BMD has given us, isn't it?