Recommended procedure to upgrade DMD installation

[Seb via Digitalmars-d]

On Thursday, 4 August 2016 at 18:47:36 UTC, A D dev wrote:
> Hi group,
>
> Somewhat new to D.
>
> What is the recommended procedure, if any, to upgrade my DMD 
> installation (on Windows, if that makes a difference)?
>
> I.e. If I have 2.70.0 and I saw that 2.17.1 is out now, I can 
> look at the list of bug fixes and any new features in the new 
> version and decide whether I want to upgrade, or wait for 
> another version with more changes that matter to me. That is 
> not what my question is about.

OT: 2.071.0 has been released in April - you may check more often 
;-)

> My question is about:
>
> - should I just install the new version in the same directory, 
> over the old version, or do I need to uninstall the old version 
> first.

I never use(d) Windows, but I can help you in the way that there 
are no persistent settings. A DMD installation is completely 
independent in it's folder. Hence you can safely install the new 
version in the same directory, but I would make at least a copy 
of the old version first - just in case any regression popped in.

> - if I have to first uninstall the old version, are there any 
> persistent setting for the compiler that I need to save before 
> the uninstall and then restore after the new install?

The only configuration file is `dmd.conf` (for common flags), a 
user usually doesn't need to modify it, so I would be surprised 
if you did.

> - any other things I need to take care of?

Not that I would know of, but maybe people using Windows can give 
more advice.

> Thanks.