10.6 User Home in 10.7 (and back again?)

[shinsundo]

Does anyone know what happens to the 10.6 files that get opened in Lion – such as iTunes preference files, address book files, iCal files, Mail.app, Safari files etc?

Can all files in one's Home User still be opened normally in Snow Leopard AFTER being opened in 10.7, or are they permanently changed to the new Lion file type when opened in 10.7 making it impossible to “downgrade” back to 10.6?

I'd love to be able to boot between 10.6 and 10.7 using the same User Home folder and files until I'm comfortable going 10.7 full time.

Thank you!

 

[Takuro]

Generally speaking, it's sort of a bad idea to have user preferences being actively used by two different operating systems, which likely have different versions of apps running on each, and therefore probably use different structures of .plist files to keep track of settings.

For non-Apple apps, this should be safe for the most part. The only issue I can see is that certain filesystem mappings can get messed up easily. What if an app has "/Library/application support/blah" as a dependent file, and then when you switch to the other operating system, the "blah" folder doesn't exist in "/Library/application support/blah." Depending on which OS you're in, the root folder "/" is mapped to different locations on your hard disk.

 

[shinsundo]

Yeah I wouldn't think it would work or be a good idea either usually but wondered if perhaps if somehow 10.7 was sophisticated enough to make it happen. Too bad...I can't believe 10.7 is ready for prime time work flow yet so guess I gotta wait to make the full jump.

Anyone else feel differently? Thanks!