Upgrading WordPress

My plan today is to upgrade this blog to the new WordPress version 2.6. Right now it’s still at 2.3.3.

I am currently using version 2.5.1 with a number of blogs and really like some of the features, particularly when it comes to managing plugins. With 2.5.1 you can automatically upgrade plugins when a new version becomes available. This is such a time saver (rather than downloading the new version, unzipping it and uploading it to the server…).

While Fantastico is cool for installing blogs, I have preferred not to use it because I prefer to name the database with a tag I will recognize. With Fantastico, you get wrdp_1, wrdp_2, etc. and that’s not helpful long term, especially if you have a good number of blogs. So, while upgrading WordPress with Fantastico is a piece of cake, I don’t have that option.

Instead, I found a plugin that will upgrade automatically for me — Wordpress Automatic Upgrade. I tested this plugin out on another blog and it worked really well. Much easier than a manual upgrade. So I’m sold.

A couple things though:

• During the upgrade process, the plugin says it has created backups and you can download them. I did not see any options or links to follow to actually download the backups. Maybe it’s obvious and I just missed it, but I missed it. I’d recommend doing your own backups before beginning.
• The plugin led me through an upgrade of my database. That’s fine, but when it came to logging back into my admin panel, I couldn’t – my password wasn’t recognized. It was easy enough to get a new password, but I needed my email address in order to do that. I’d recommend noting what email address you have listed on your blog before going through the upgrade process. (I have dozens of email addresses and actually don’t know what email address I have used with all of my blogs.)

That’s it! So far, I highly recommend this plugin. I’ll play with it on a couple more blogs and then I’ll know for sure.