Developing with multiple versions of Django on windows

At work, we have sites that use various versions of Django, so there is a need to switch packages.  On my mac I use virtualenv to handle this, but I've never quite gotten it to play nice with windows, and just switching Django versions has sufficed so far. If you can set up virtualenv, that's a much better solution

  1. Download junction (think symbolic links for windows). Put the executable somewhere in your path. I put it in my Python scripts folder (C:\Python26\Scripts)
  2. Plan out your directory structure: Make sure you don't have any stock django eggs or folders in your site-packages folder
  3. Create a django_veresions folder in site-packages (C:\Python26\Lib\site-packages\django_versions)
  4. In this folder I put my different django installs
```
C:\Python26\Lib\site-packages\django_versions\1.1\django 
C:\Python26\Lib\site-packages\django_versions\1.3\django 
C:\Python26\Lib\site-packages\django_versions\1.4\django 
```
  1. I also put a txt file inside the django folder to easily see what version is there (this will be helpful later to double check)
```C:\Python26\Lib\site-packages\django_versions\1.4\django\1.4.txt
  1. Create a file called djangoversion.cmd and drop it in C:\Python26\Scripts ```junction -d C:\Python26\Lib\site-packages\django junction
C:\Python26\Lib\site-packages\django 
C:\Python26\Lib\site-packages\django_versions\%1\django
```
  1. The first line removes any links that may have been there. The second line creates a new link to the version you'll pass in.
  2. Now, to switch versions, just run this from the command line:
```
djangoversion 1.4 
PS C:\Users\tbroder> djangoversion 1.4 
C:\Users\tbroder>junction -d 
C:\Python26\Lib\site-packages\django Junction v1.06 - Windows junction creator and reparse point viewer Copyright (C) 2000-2010 Mark Russinovich Sysinternals - www.sysinternals.com Deleted 
C:\Python26\Lib\site-packages\django. 
C:\Users\tbroder>junction C:\Python26\Lib\site-packages\django 
C:\Python26\Lib\site-packages\django_versions\1.4\django Junction v1.06 - Windows junction creator and reparse point viewer Copyright (C) 2000-2010 Mark Russinovich Sysinternals - www.sysinternals.com Created: 
C:\Python26\Lib\site-packages\django Targetted at: 
C:\Python26\Lib\site-packages\django_versions\1.4\django PS C:\Users\tbroder> 
```
  1. Switch as needed