Upgrading WordPress | Update WordPress

Upgrades | Monday 15 October 2007

Let’s say you have an existing site that uses an older version of WordPress, and you want to upgrade so that your website benefits from the latest and greatest WP version. Maybe it’s a security or bug fix (which in either case you’re going to want to get the latest version) or maybe it’s an upgrade loaded with a bunch of neat features. In any case you’ve made the decision to upgrade, but it’s not without some trepidation. You think maybe you should leave well enough alone.

A trip to the official WordPress site shows you a few ways to update or upgrade your current WordPress installation (software)*:

1. Three (3) Step Upgrade - actually it’s four steps if you count Step 0 - Before You Get Started. This will work for most, especially if you don’t have a lot of extra plugins and you’re using a standard WordPress theme.

2. Extended Upgrade - if you tried the 3 Step Upgrade and you ran into problems or you want to take every safety precaution known to man or woman, then use this method.

3. Upgrade Using Subversion - used mostly by software developers, non-developers can also use it to install and upgrade WordPress if they have command-line access to the web server, and if your server has the Subversion (svn) software installed. Some consider this to be much easier than than the other WordPress installation and upgrade methods, but if you don’t understand the explanation, skip this method.

*Please note: in ALL cases, make sure you back up 1) your original WordPress files and 2) your WordPress database before performing the upgrade. Backing up your old WordPress files means simply copying them from the server that your WordPress site is on to a directory on your own computer. You’ll need to be familiar with FTPing (File Transfer Protocol - a fancy term that means accessing your files and directories on the server that hosts them) and you’ll need FTP software to access your WordPress site. Backing up your database can be done simply by downloading and activating the WP-DB-Backup plugin or manually via a few methods. I always opt for the easy plugin method.

And now there’s a fourth (4th) way to upgrade your WordPress software. Following is a video that shows you the step-by-step method, but before you view the video, you’ll need to install two plugins - 1) the WP-DB-Backup plugin that I referred to above and 2) the Instant Upgrade plugin. I haven’t used this method yet but will on the next upgrade. Let me know if any one of you have used it.