Title: Multiple Installs, Single Database?
Last modified: August 18, 2016

---

# Multiple Installs, Single Database?

 *  [jpettit](https://wordpress.org/support/users/jpettit/)
 * (@jpettit)
 * [21 years, 3 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/multiple-installs-single-database/)
 * I’m interested to know if there are any issues or potential problems with installing
   WordPress 1.5 into multiple directories, and then use the same single database(
   same tables).
    I would like to have multiple themes setup so that i can develop
   in one directory and run production in the other. Since both installs will use
   the same tables and data, content would be identical. There is this wiki regarding
   multi blogs and multiple tables (using prefix), but i’m not interested in creating
   more tables, with different data sets. [http://wiki.wordpress.org/?pagename=MultipleBlogs](http://wiki.wordpress.org/?pagename=MultipleBlogs)
   Thanks in advance!

Viewing 8 replies - 1 through 8 (of 8 total)

 *  Moderator [James Huff](https://wordpress.org/support/users/macmanx/)
 * (@macmanx)
 * [21 years, 3 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/multiple-installs-single-database/#post-158446)
 * Don’t follow that out-of-date resource. Follow this one:
    [http://codex.wordpress.org/Installing_Multiple_Blogs](http://codex.wordpress.org/Installing_Multiple_Blogs)
 *  Moderator [James Huff](https://wordpress.org/support/users/macmanx/)
 * (@macmanx)
 * [21 years, 3 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/multiple-installs-single-database/#post-158447)
 * And, for switching themes, you could just use a theme switcher plugin.
 * [http://dev.wp-plugins.org/browser/theme-switcher/trunk/](http://dev.wp-plugins.org/browser/theme-switcher/trunk/)
 *  Thread Starter [jpettit](https://wordpress.org/support/users/jpettit/)
 * (@jpettit)
 * [21 years, 3 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/multiple-installs-single-database/#post-158450)
 * thanks macmanx for the reply.
    I’m not looking to have the 2nd install visable
   or useable by readers…just a 2nd copy that i will play with and develop with.
   it would seem to me that it should matter to have a ‘copy’ but you never know.
 *  Moderator [James Huff](https://wordpress.org/support/users/macmanx/)
 * (@macmanx)
 * [21 years, 3 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/multiple-installs-single-database/#post-158451)
 * If you can get your hand on a second MySQL database, I’d recommend that. Once
   you do, just install WordPress, backup your original site’s database, and then
   restore it into the new site’s database. Thus giving you two blogs with the same
   content. For instructions on backup and restore, see the tutorial here:
 * [http://tamba2.org.uk/wordpress/](http://tamba2.org.uk/wordpress/)
 *  [Arlo](https://wordpress.org/support/users/arlo/)
 * (@arlo)
 * [21 years ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/multiple-installs-single-database/#post-159189)
 * I would like to do the same thing as the OP, but instead of multiple blogs, is
   it possible to have more than one theme folder used at a time? For example, I
   would have my live site using themefolder1, and I would have a separate index
   file point to themefolder2…doable?
 *  [Kafkaesqui](https://wordpress.org/support/users/kafkaesqui/)
 * (@kafkaesqui)
 * [21 years ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/multiple-installs-single-database/#post-159190)
 * _ahem_
    Some benefits of using [Theme Switcher](http://dev.wp-plugins.org/wiki/ThemeSwitcher)
   for testing themes:
 * 1. It uses your existing blog setup, so
    2. There’s no need for additional installations,
   or 3. No need for a test platform running locally, and it 4. Doesn’t require 
   complicated hacks to “fake” it.
 * To use for testing themes, don’t add the tag into your sidebar. Just call the
   theme up through an url query:
 * `yoursite.com/yourblog/?wptheme=Name Of Test Theme`
 * If you already use Theme Switcher and want to provide it to readers, yet want
   to *hide* test themes, the current version of WordPress (and version 0.3 of Theme
   Switcher) supports the Status theme header in style.css, so by adding:
 * `Status: draft`
 * to your stylesheet, Theme Switcher will not display that theme for selection.
 *  [Arlo](https://wordpress.org/support/users/arlo/)
 * (@arlo)
 * [21 years ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/multiple-installs-single-database/#post-159191)
 * AH! I didn’t “get it”–I thought switching was global..if I can do that locally
   without affecting the default theme, this is perfect 🙂
 *  [joshteeters](https://wordpress.org/support/users/joshteeters/)
 * (@joshteeters)
 * [20 years, 11 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/multiple-installs-single-database/#post-159199)
 * Thanks Kafkaesqui! I was wanting to do the same thing (install a ‘testbed’ for
   WordPress, and use my existing DB).
 * This is much, much better.

Viewing 8 replies - 1 through 8 (of 8 total)

The topic ‘Multiple Installs, Single Database?’ is closed to new replies.

 * In: [Everything else WordPress](https://wordpress.org/support/forum/miscellaneous/)
 * 8 replies
 * 5 participants
 * Last reply from: [joshteeters](https://wordpress.org/support/users/joshteeters/)
 * Last activity: [20 years, 11 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/multiple-installs-single-database/#post-159199)
 * Status: not resolved

## Topics

### Topics with no replies

### Non-support topics

### Resolved topics

### Unresolved topics

### All topics