The best way to install Blender in Windows is to use the zip version that can be downloaded from blender.org. If you also want to use different versions of Blender, it is an advantage to put all settings in a separate folder during each installation.
Here is a guide on how to download and “install” blender in this way.
- Go to: https://www.blender.org/download/
- Klick on “macOS, Linux and other versions” and select “Windows Portable(.zip)”
- The download begins
- Locate the downloaded .zip file and move it to the folder where you want to unzip the program. This is also the folder from wich the program will run.
- Unzip the file.
- Go to the folder, for example ….\blender-2.91.0-windows64\2.91 and in that folder create an empty folder called “config”
From Blender 4.x, create an empty folder called “portable” in the same folder as the Blender executable. - Finally, Go back to ….\blender-2.91.0-windows64 and locate the blender.exe file and make a shortcut of this file to your desktop.
Now when you start Blender all of your configurations will be added to the newly made folder called config or as for Blender 4.x in the folder portable.
If you want to “install” another version of Blender do the same step, but unzip the files in another folder, create a new configuration folder as described above and also create a new one shortcut to this version of Blender.
Great post, Martin. The only thing that could involve some hassle is file association for when double-clicking .blend files (which Blender version would open). I guess it’s not too hard to manage this with something like NirSoft’s `File Types Man` (https://www.nirsoft.net/utils/file_types_manager.html). However, worth mentioning is also a tool called Blender Launcher, that seems pretty useful. It provides a GUI (I believe it resides in the system tray) for handling different Blender versions. I’m not sure if it addresses the possible chance you might want to use local preferences, different for each version. Maybe it does? But if it doesn’t, I guess it should be fairly easy to jump inside each version and manually add `config` folders, though.
And now a short message in Swedish to my fellow countryman: God jul och gott nytt år!
PS. Forgot to post the link to Blender Launcher: https://github.com/DotBow/Blender-Launcher … DS.