Should i upgrade from 3.6.4 to 3.8 ?

[GTX2]

Hi aLL!

Should i upgrade my old vbulletin 3.6.4 version into the new released version 3.8?

What will i gain and what will i loose?
I hadn't upgrade yet to any newer version because of my hacks, i'm using between 20-30 hacks on my board....

thank you for your comments

[King Kovifor]

Upgrading to 3.8 provides you with the latest stable code, and the new Social Networking features. You can always do a test upgrade (on a test board / copy of your board in a test forum) and check everything out. But, if you don't want to upgrade, it is highly suggested that you upgrade to at least 3.6.12 to get all the security fixes and bug fixes.

[CarlitoBrigante]

A lot of 3.6.x hacks will work on vB 3.8, but you will need to upgrade your templates with some good comparison tool like Beyond Compare. And yeah, as King said, running 3.6.4 is really, really a bad idea, with all automated hacks and script kids that like to use old software to gain entry to your machine through security holes.

[Alfa1]

There are loads of boards that run older software. Especially larger boards. I like to get the latest functionality & security, but the more options you have, the more load I would expect.

[punchbowl]

I'd go for 3.7.3 or 3.6.12

[GTX2]

yeah templates is another problem for me... i have bunches of template changes in my 3.6.4... :s

[Dismounted]

Either be prepared to manually go through each updated template to compare and change them, but otherwise, at least upgrade to the latest stable version in your branch (for 3.6, this is 3.6.12). Also remember that 3.6 has already been declared End-of-Life and that updates will not be pushed into 3.6 any more.

[GTX2]

I'm really interested in starting the upgrade to latest 3.8 version, its now time.
First question: how can i simulate an upgrade like using www.myforum.com/test , using the same mysql database as the main forum running 3.6.4 ?
I want first to test the upgrade, and then upgrade if everything goes fine....

is there any faq or howto i can use for this?
Thanks

[CarlitoBrigante]

Create a full DB AND file backup (you cannot imagine how often we were called because a client had deleted by error all his/her attachments when moving/upgrading a forum), first of all. Then import the backup into a different database and work on it. Make 100% sure that the configuration in your test directory is pointing to the test database, not to the main one.

Test the upgrade, then repeat the process in the live forums. There are obviously a thousand different ways to do things depending on a lot of factors, including how much downtime you can afford and so on.

For our clients we try to do as much as possible in the test directory so that we can move all the files to the main directory and repeat the upgrade on the main database.

Difficulties usually come from huge and poorly maintaned databases, or big databases on old machines, where updating a column in a table like the post table can take ages.

Once you have done this part of the work and you have upgraded in the main location of your website, it is time to start updating your templates and mods, one by one. This can take a lot of time depending on amount of customization done to your forums. You can use comparison tools like Beyond Compare (my favorite) or one of the free ones, like Win Compare (good but somewhat less user friendly than BC). If you are using advanced mods that required a lot of file editing and that changed completely the way some parts of the forums were rendered (like some of the tabbed hacks around, commercial and free) things might be more difficult.