This weekend I took the plunge and updated my three blogs to WordPress 2.3.1 from WordPress 2.2.2. using Fantastico. I was a little nervous about this since I had never done an upgrade to WordPress before. Thankfully, everything went smoothly.

The WordPress codex offers detailed upgrade instructions which are a must read before you upgrade. I did step 1 - backed up my database using my backup plugin. But I did not do step 2 and 7 because I really didn’t know how - caution! this is extremely bad advice but it worked for me. I also didn’t need to download and upload the WordPress update because that is done by Fantastico.

I then, deactivated all of my plugins. And I reverted my theme back to the original Kubrick default. This is a very important step because not all plugins and themes are compatible with WordPress 2.3.1. If an incompatible plugin or theme is running when you upgrade you just might be toast.

I then went to Fantastico via my cpanel, hit upgrade now and crossed my fingers.

When the upgrade was complete, I switched back to my current theme, and reactivated my plugins (there were some that were not compatible). WordPress 2.3.1 has a nice feature that lets you know which of your plugins have a newer version out. So I took the time to install the latest versions of my plugins.

Done.

Overall I found the process to be easier than anticipated.