Recommended procedure to upgrade DMD installation

[Mike Parker 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. 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.

f you're running the installer, it will uninstall the previous 
version for you. If you are doing it manually, I recommend you 
delete the existing folder rather than overwriting it.

>
> - 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?

If you are compiling 64-bit programs, the installer will find the 
Microsoft tools for you. If you are installing manually, you need 
to edit sc.ini manually with the correct paths, so you'll want to 
back up the existing sc.ini first in that case (or if you've made 
any other edits to it).