first and formost, thanks, the_roggy, thanks so very much for your reply. 

Okay so I haven't really attached this to any google account yet.  Although we both have google accoutns, my wife never post, I have an active PicasaWeb account, and am fairly active with G+    But for now, our PC installs are not attached to any Google account.  

Also, I copied some notes to itself in the Picasa 2 and Picass directory last night and all went well.     (going from memory ... right now I'm at work) 

But, as both installs are watching the SAME EXACT FOLDERS, I'm thinking of replacing those two key folders with a Window 7 symlink, a Junction so that the EXACT SAME DATABASE is referenced no matter which executable you kick off.   Do you see anything wrong with that plan ?   I'm all ears

thanks,