Larian Studios Forums Beyond Divinity (English) General Patch 1.44, why so big?

No, you don't have to start again. I had version 1.44 - copied it into another partition, updated this to 1.45 => all my 1.44 saves are working on 1.45.
If you want to go the safe way => rar/zip and backup your 1.44 saves (or your favourite ones) somewhere else additionally - then patch to 1.45.
Kiya