Upgrading from 5.4.1 to 7. Can't open project

I really don’t like the way this “installed”. it’s not in my launchpad, and it won’t let me put it there!
after the download I think I installed it, but it’s in my documents folder. anyways i ran it and found my add ons, but it just won’t open my project. I saved the project as a rw6 file and that didn’t work either. then i upgraded to the hidden version 5.4.1 by downloading from a link on this forum, and the convert to v6 option went away. saved it again, and still won’t import. I just get the “something went wrong” dialog box.
please help