Smooth Upgrade to WordPress 2.1.1 in 8 Steps

Yesterday night I decided it was time to upgrade my WP installation to the latest version and I did not wait for any longer to start working on it. The entire upgrade process took less than 20 minutes and it was trouble free, mostly because I maintain a log sheet of changes that I keep making to the WP and theme files and knew what to backup and which files to update. Here is a list of task items that I ran through:

1. Quickly check if the plugins I use, that are critical for functionality of my site, have a compatible/latest release to run on Wp 2.1.1 or at least 2.0+. Downloaded their latest versions and installed them. Luckily, I found updated versions of all the plugins that I use.

2. Download the latest version of WP from WordPress.Org and extract to a folder.

3. Create a backup of WP database using the Backup plugin in WP. WP-Admin->Manage->Backup and select all the tables corresponding to your WP. You may also want to select additional tables that should be backed up.

4. Make a backup of all the required files, customized files, images directory, wp-content directory on your system. Use any FTP program such as FileZilla to achieve this task. I had made changes to wp-rss2.php and wp-atom files in order to serve Pheedo RSS Ads and since it was on my log sheet of changes, took a backup so I could re-make the changes.

5. Disabled all the plugins to avoid any immediate issues when upgrade is done. Disabling the plugins has an advantage and that is it quickly lets you isolate a problem, if arises after the upload. So, you might enable them one-by-one and observe your home page for any potential problems. In this way, you are immediately aware about the plugin that could be causing the error.

6. Wordpress.Org recommends deleting the files and uploading files from latest version. Since I knew what I was doing, I preferred to overwrite them. I checked the option in FTP client to overwrite the files if they existed on the remote server instead of overwriting only if the files were newer than existing files. [Getting the difference?]. I then began the process of uploading all the files, and I replaced all the required files.

7. After uploading the files, I ran the upgrade.php, located under wp-admin folder as per the instructions. This was by far the most easiest step involved in entire upgrade process.

8. I was done, almost! Checked the home page but could see nothing coming up. I knew that the plugins were disabled. Started to enable them one-by-one till all the plugins were activated.

9. All Set!!

WP 2.1.1 seems to be faster than earlier versions and I am glad that I made the move. There are times in our life when we have to stop thinking and act! I did it!

[Upgrading WordPress - Official Page] | [Download WordPress] | [Minimum Requirements]