I normally work with several versions of GeneXus installed on my computer, even with several upgrades of the same version.
The installation is done directly from the .zip and then GeneXus /install.
The query comes because, as part of the process, I add the following keys to the genexus.exe.config file:
<add key="UserAppDataPath" value="C:\temp\Genexus\GX17UBeta\UserAppData"/>
<add key="ProgramDataPath" value="C:\temp\Genexus\GX17UBeta\ProgramDataPath"/>
Currently I do it out of habit and I am not sure if it is still necessary.