Linked vs. Duplicated Products & "product disabled"

[TheDruid]

Hi, I'm trying to link and or duplcate some of my products to various categories, A) whats the difference between the two and B) how come when I do either one of these it says the product has been disabled? how do I enable the linked/duplicated copy?

[Ajeh]

Let's say you have a Widget with products_id 27 sitting in categories_id 35 ...

If you copy as a Linked Product to categories_id 50, you still only have products_id 27 but it is referenced to be in both categories_id 35 and 50 ...

So, whether you edit the product from categories_id 35 or from 50, you will see the changes in both categories as this is still the same product ...


If you copy as a Duplicate Product to categories_id 50, you will now have 2 physical products that are identical so you would have products_id 27 and then whatever the next products_id is, such as 208 ...

Now these products are independant of one another and changes made to one does not affect the other ...

Duplicates are turned OFF by default as the intention was to Copy the original product as a "base" for the new product and then make changes etc. As such, you really don't want that new product to be immediately available to the customer until you are done ...

[TheDruid]

Ajeh - Thank you very much, that clears it up for me and now I know exactly which one I want to use. Thank you.

[Ajeh]

You are most welcome ... glad to hear that this helped you better understand the Copy Products as Linked Products or as Duplicate Products and, with luck, it will help someone else feeling a tad fuzzy on this ...