The ‘un-aided’ process of upgrading your Wordpress installation can be daunting and time-consuming, but here’s a simple and quick solution: the Wordpress Automatic Upgrade Plugin.

Here’s a simple, step-by-step process to upgrade to Wordpress 2.5 in 10 minutes or less, and make all future upgrades simple and pain free:

Firstly, locate and download the Wordpress Automatic Upgrade Plugin. It’s here:

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wordpress-automatic-upgrade/#post-2560

Then:

1. Unzip the files and upload the folder called Wordpress-Automatic-Upgrade to your /wp-content/plugins directory
2. Access your blog admin screens and Go to your Plugins screen.
3. Locate Wordpress Automatic Upgrade (it will be near the bottom) and click ‘activate’.

That’s it as far as installing and activating the plugin. When you’re ready to upgrade follow these steps:

• Access your Admin screens and go to the plugins screen.
• Check for any plugins that tell you there’s an upgrade available.
• Upgrade any and all plugins that need upgrading
• After all your plugins are updated do a full back up of your database and system files. (Just use your FTP client to copy the system files to your PC and follow the ‘Simple Wordpress Database Backup’ instructions at Wordpress .org for your database)
• Once your backups are completed go to your blog admin screens and click ‘Manage’
• Locate and click ‘Automatic Upgrade’
• Be sure to have the following details ready – the plugin will ask you for them so it can access your server files:

1. FTP Username
2. FTP Password
3. Directory Where your blog is located
4. FTP Host

• Start the upgrade process.
• Suggestion: Don’t opt for the Automatic process. (It’s an option in the first or second screen). It’s just a boy scout principle: if anything goes wrong you’ll know what stage you’d reached before the problem arose.
• Click on each link that it tells you to, and follow the process through.
• When it comes to the database upgrade it will do this in a separate window (or tab). At the end of the database upgrade process there’s a big ‘Continue’ link. DON’T click that one! Just close the window (or tab) so that you’re back in the original window where you’re doing the upgrade process.
• Click on to the next step and follow the process through to the end.

That’s it..!

I upgraded from WP 2.3.2 to 2.3.3 and from 2.3.3 to 2.5 with this plugin and it works like a charm. I do heartily recommend it for anyone operating a Wordpress blog. Once it’s installed and active and you’ve done your updates and backups it is, literally, a 10 minute process to upgrade your WP blog.

If anyone has any questions or suggestions leave a comment!

Update:

As a result of the interest in this post, I’ve written a full, detailed guide on the entire upgrade process - from start to finish. In addition to what I’ve covered here the detailed guide covers:

• How to avoid problems with your theme and plugins when you upgrade
• How to do full backups of your blog database and system files
• How to restore your backed-up blog database
• How to upgrade your blog manually in case you have troubles with the Auto Upgrade Plugin

You can find the comprehensive guide here:

Comprehensive, step-by-step Wordpress upgrade guide in clear, easy-to-understand language

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