Can I have two Zen Cart folders using the same database?

Hi,
I have a zen cart setup that is live, and I want to test a new template and make template changes on the server. what I would like to do is have my zen cart live shopping cart operating, say in a folder called shop. But I'd like to copy the code of folder "shop" and call it "shopNew". Can both folders be on the server and using the single zen cart database? Will that mess anything up? I can't see why it would. then I can make my template changes and tests using the shopNew folder - and the live customers wont see me changing things around. i don't need to make any updates to the database, so that won't affect things. And I don't really want to setup a test database.

Thanks!

You can use the same database as long as you use 2 different prefixes for your tables when you set them up.

If you want to really use the same database, it is possible as well, but changes made on 1 site will affect the other, which you may not want.

One database shared by two installations of the code and template files is possible, but remember that ALL settings that are configured and stored in the database will be COMMON to both sites. This is ALL products, ALL orders, ALL customers, ALL countries, zones, taxes, prices, currencies.........

So, (for one example of hundreds...) if you were to disable the "Featured Products" sidebox in site "1", it would ALSO be disabled in site "2".

Thanks for the info. Yes I want the stuff to be the same. So I will go ahead and try it out with the two sites and one database.

that is a help!