When I upgraded to 2.2.6, no, I didn't have it installed. I had it installed in an earlier version, but in an earlier upgrade I didn't reinstall it. Besides, having it already installed shouldn't matter. Having it already installed only saves you the trouble of doing any database changes and possibly adding templates; those are the easy parts. The hard parts are doing the file modifications, and upgrading completely destroys file modifications, because you're using new, clean files.
I understand what you're saying about being a newbie...but it's because I had to figure things out on my own that I'm not a newbie anymore.
But I'm not saying there's anything wrong; I'm just saying that, in my experience, I don't have any problems.