Upgrades - The best way?

[Lynne]

I just recently upgraded my forums from 3.0.12 to 3.6.8. This is what I did and these are the same steps I will take for the upgrade to 3.7:

- made a test site with a test database
- made a backup of the real site (database backup and attachments/avatars/profile pics files)
- put all the backup stuff on the test site including all the files so I had an exact duplicate of my site
- then downloaded 3.6.8 and made any file modifications I wanted to add (for hacks I installed)
- uploaded all those files to my test site
- ran the upgrade script on the test site
- made all template modifications needed on the test site
- made sure the test site was running just fine - tested all modifications and everything
- downloaded all the files to my computer from the test site
- downloade/exported all the modifications/hacks into a "hacks" folder on my computer
- exported the styles (templates) into my "hacks" folder on my computer
- now I have a copy of all files except the database/attachments/avatars on my computer
- closed my main site
- made a backup of the database and attachments/avatars/etc and all files on the main site
- uploaded all the 3.6.8 files from my computer to the main site
- ran the upgrade script on my main site
- imported all the hacks from my "hacks" folder to the main site
- imported the styles from my "hacks" folder to the main site
- now my main site should be just like my test site only more recent since my test site was running from on older database
- test it out, make sure it's running OK
- open up your main site

I really, strongly suggest upgrading a test site first. This lets you get all the kinks (or most of them!) out before you do this on your main site.