Upgrades - The best way?

[MrEyes]

I have been using vBulletin since late last year, so I currently have 3.6.8 PL2 installed. In addition to the standard forum I also have a few modifications, nothing out of the ordinary:

• vBulletin Blog
• vbArcade
• ibProArcade
• Radio & TV
• vbAdvanced CMPS

In addition to these I also have a few custom styles and template changes (i.e. my navbar is in the header template). However the default VB style/templates are untouched and disabled.

As I am new to VB, when 3.7 goes gold this will be my very first upgrade. So I am starting for a very inexperienced point. I obviously intend to test the upgrade process before doing it on the live site. However I would like to get some advice/suggestions on the best way to perform the upgrade. Hopefully these will also help other forum admins who I am sure are thinking the same thing.

For example, should I revert my 3.6.8 install back down to the defaults, perform the upgrade and then reinstall the mods / recreate the styles/template changes? Can I leave the mods in place and run the upgrade and somehow the magical pixies will make it all work?

Then there is the fact that some of the mods have updates for 3.7 so all these will have to be upgraded as well.

[snakes1100]

You can run the upgrade as normal, without reverting the styles or disabling the hacks, you can use for example araxis merge or beyond compare to compare old & new templates and apply the changes from the new version to your current styles.

When is comes to addon products, i check them for compatibility before the upgrade, to make sure which ones are compatible or can be updated or need to go.

[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.