Stephen Pontes [.com]

After only 5 minutes of downtime, I’m up and running on the newest version of WordPress. Worried about downtime but really want to upgrade? Follow along for Stephen “the least downtime contest” Pontes’ guide!

The lingo.

• “Virgin WordPress” – WordPress 2.6.2 downloaded from WordPress.org
• “Server” – Wherever you’re hosting your WordPress installation
• “Current WordPress installation” – Your old, outdated version of WordPress (anything before 2.6.2)

First, make sure you have a complete backup of whatever you deem important enough. I backed up my wp-content folder, as it has this theme plus other themes that I’ve done some custom stuff to. If you’re not sure what’s “custom” or not for your installation, back up the whole WordPress directory on your server. Depending on your connection speed and how big your site is, this can take anywhere from five minutes to an hour.

Next, download the latest version of WordPress (as of this post, it’s 2.6.2). Extract this virgin copy of WordPress to your desktop, then make sure to delete the wp-content directory. The wp-content directory, as I mentioned before, holds the various themes and plugins that you download. If you upload this directory and overwrite the one on your server you’ll lose anything other than the default WordPress themes and plugins!

Remove the wp-content directory from the new version of WordPress!

Get ready to upload. Now that your virgin WordPress folder is “prepped”, you can upload it to your website into a folder separate from the current WordPress installation. The goal here is to make sure that you’re uploading the new version somewhere on the server without overwriting any current files. Most users will upload the new wordpress files on “top” of their old ones, replacing as they go. This is bad. We’re uploading all the files before overwriting anything.

Now comes the “replace all”. Now that all the new WordPress files are on the server, your upload speed is out of the downtime equation. Drag all the files from your “separated” folder to overwrite your current WordPress files. Your “downtime” is only as long as it takes to copy and paste on the server’s local hard drive.

You’re good to go! Hopefully. If all went according to plan you dragged your virgin WordPress files from its separated folder into your current WordPress install, overwriting and replacing all. Log in to your admin section (/wp-admin) and see what version you’re running (at the bottom of the page). Great success!

Hope you enjoyed this little tutorial! I’ll be posting an entry on an entirely different topic within the next few days, so stay tuned…