How to install different Application Designer PeopleTools version in the same client machine

Sometimes developers want to access application designer of different PeopleTools version in their machine. This usually happens during upgrade, developer wants to have both version of People Tool’s application designer installed in their machine for analysis. Sometimes developer may be supporting different applications like HRMS and Finance which are in different tools version.

When you want to have application designer of multiple versions in a machine below understanding of the registry key will help you resolve most of the challenges:

Pre PeopleTools 8.50 versions use the same windows registry key. Since they use the same registry key, settings of the latter installed tools version will override the setting of the previous installed version. For example when you install 8.49 then tools 8.45 registry keys are overwritten with 8.49 values.

Until 8.49 PS_HOME DLL’s are different in the registry entries for each PeopleTools. This means you can have 8.46 with any combination of other PS_HOME up to 8.49 provided Connect ID and connect password should be same for both environments. If in case they are different then you will be able to use only the latter installed version.

Installing Application Designer PeopleTools 8.50 or 8.51 or higher, along with an older PeopleTools version on the same client machine. For example, 8.47.16 won’t run after installing the 8.51 client software. How to overcome this issue?

The structure of the registry for PeopleSoft settings has changed beginning with PeopleTools 8.50. Due to changes in the registry structure beginning with PeopleTools 8.50, if you intend to run PeopleTools 8.50 and later versions of Configuration Manager and previous versions of Configuration Manager (PeopleTools 8.49, 8.48, and so on), on the same development workstation, pre-PeopleTools 8.50 values stored in the registry will be deleted.

Due to these changes in the registry structure, the first run of the PeopleTools 8.5x Configuration Manager will delete any PeopleTools 8.4x configuration settings stored in the registry in the HKEY_CURRENT_USER hive. PeopleTools 8.4x and PeopleTools 8.5x registry settings can co-exist, but the PeopleTools 8.4x settings must be preserved prior to the first run of the PeopleTools 8.5x Configuration Manager so that they can be restored afterwards.

Use the registry editor to export and save the contents of HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\PeopleSoft\PeopleTools\Release8.40

Run 8.50 PSCFG

Restore the saved registry contents

8.4x and 8.50 will then use the same registry values with the exception of the Profiles registry key. 8.4x and earlier will use the Profile settings under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, and 8.50 and newer will use the Profile settings under HKEY_CURRENT_USER.