Oh! OK ..

Well your first question I read and hadn't a clue. But your follow up does hide an option that ISN'T about 3rd party plug sharing. And when the term Plug is used - well it is confusing for me too!

Vegas has this free "Preset Manager". And before you get too excited, this ain't what you want. this will manage and allow for transfer/transport between users and machines of Chains of Presets to be used and accessed through Plug-In manager.

So, for example, I can create an FX chain. Save it. Email it to YOU and you could use it. But are these the pluginns you speak of? I'm guessing no.

So, until you explain a wee bit further, I'm at a loss to offer a suggestion. But, if you haven't got the free Preset Manager download it from the Sony site and explore its ways and methods.

Sorry - guess this wasn't very useful? But as nobody had replied .. I'd thought I'd kick-off.

I think Gary is talking about installations on the same machine. For example, one method to update is to not remove or overwrite the older version and instead install to a completely different directory, so that the older installation is left intact in case you should want/need to use it later.
Example:
C:\Programme\Vegas4
C:\Program Files\Vegas5

In this case the plugins may not automatically show up in both versions. It used to be you could drag the .DLL file from Explorer and drop onto an open instance of Vegas, in this case, the newer version. You will be asked if you want to register it. I am not sure if this method is still implemented, but it might be worth a try. As far as the "correct" method goes, hmm...don't know.

From one machine to another a new installation is required and then the Preset Manager would be the tool to transfer your custom FX chains, provided of course you saved them into a .SFPRESET file first.

BTW while searching the net for "this and that" I saw a cool 3-strip preset: vegicolor (in the paragraph on technicolor). I hope it is all right to post the link. Thanks to Matthew for sharing.

Marquat,
You win the banana. That is exactly it. I have VV5, VV6 and VV7 all installed under a subdirctory of Sony and then each version can run on its own. Earlier versions are installed under a Sonic Foundry subdirectly. Yes, you could drag the DLL from one version to another. However, first question is if a particular effect or whatever is updated from one version to another you want to make sure you don't take one step back. But third party effects or pluggins such as Boris FX7 that I have you want to move or use in the various versions as well. I copied the Boris FX7 DLL's from VV5 to VV7 and it appears to work. I have not tried the drop an effect onto a project timeline though I suspect that works too. I have not opened up the earlier versions lately. I thought I used to be able to setup a preference telling Vegas where to go look for things.

As for the preset manager, I have not figure out the more complicated things it offers. I am a keep it simple guy for the most part. But I think you have answered the question it that you just copy them where you need them to the proper pluggin subdirectory of that Version# and it shows up. Thanks

Gary