Bitcoin Forum

My current release is 0.14.2 on Windows

It is some time since I synced it.

I am creating a new directory for new version and also for data.

Now I have two options.

  - Sync the current version
  - Copy program and data to new location 
  -  install new version on the new location
OR
  - copy the current version and data to the new locations
  - Install new version on new location
  - Perform sync

What would be the best choice or does it not matter?

Normally, you should just make a backup of your wallet.dat, install a new version and run it so it can start syncing, starting from the last time you synced your wallet... The actual data is stored not in the directory containing the bitcoin binary, but in %APPDATA%\Bitcoin (https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Data_directory), so it shouldn't matter which path you start bitcoin-qt or bitcoind from.

This being said, 0.14.2 was released almost 2 years ago, i don't think there were reverse compatibility problems since then, but i'm not 100% sure.

The main advice is always the same: make sure you backup your wallet.dat before doing anything else... If you have your wallet.dat, you can basically scratch everything else and re-start on a clean machine

Just the chainstate database after 0.15.0, it may take a while to upgrade. The blocks, not a problem but I would go with option B if you ask me.

there isn't a better one!
just remember to safely backup you wallet.dat.
if you want you can install from scratch and use the bootstrap.dat file from bitcoin.org...

here all the data needed:
https://bitcoin.org/bin/