wp-logo.pngI’ve been meaning to upgrade from my WordPress 2.02 to the then-latest 2.03 and now the latest 2.04 for quite some time now because of the security and efficiency upgrades. But the prospect of having to FTP an entire WordPress installation seemed like hell to me. We know how slow FTP is, even with the fastest DSL connection. In most other cases, I would upload the archive using cPanel and then extract over the Web—it’s definitely faster that way. But for some reason, my server won’t extract via cPanel (must be a security issue? Hello Abe!).

If you’re having the same dilemma, here’s a tip: use Mark Jaquith’s WP changed files series (2.02 to 2.03 / 2.03 to 2.04). These let you modify just the changed files and not the entire installation.

Of course, it does help to backup first before upgrading. Also, if you’re using a heavily-modified installation, then it might help to backup your entire directory, too. Then again, with heafily-modded installations, you’d have to make sure everything is compatible before upgrading. A dummy installation (or a local install using WAMP or LAMP) would be good in this case.

[via Blogging Pro, which incidentally I’m writing for now.]

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