I implemented the “multiple independent npp exe + settings directories”, and after dealing with some problems, it now seems to be working fine.
The two shortcuts needed to have the -multiInst cmd line argument so I could have both instances running simult’y, and ability to freely start them in either order.
At first the instances shared things like closed files history and search phrases history. I had to approximately figure out the settings files storage and fetching rules to disentangle them. It was a consequence of my having ‘settings on cloud’ (Settings|Prefs|Cloud) feature enabled (and pointing to a local subdirectory, not an internet storage site). The two instances were using a reference to the same ‘cloud’ subdir. In one of my indep. instance directories, when i changed to ‘no cloud’, on next restart I saw a bunch of settings & styles were no longer in effect; i had to do some manual xml file overwriting to recover. (I was a bit lucky, as I hadn’t backed everything up into a dedicated do-not-touch backup).
Both instances still point to the same projects (in workspace) file, but I’m fine with that for now.
I learned stuff I didn’t realize about the relationship between shortcuts in (Win 7 pro) Start menu vs. taskbar: changes to the former don’t automagically xfer to latter; gotta (taskbar) unpin and repin.
It took a while but things seem ok now.
I’ll close by repeating: terrific multi sess mgmt out of the box is a good thing, and, npp would have it with only a minor change.