I almost thought I had lost the files of one of my most promising money making blogs three days ago when I tried to upgrade to the new Word Press 2.7 version.

If you use WordPress, you would be aware that they have got a new version now, which they advise users to upgrade to.

Like some people that I know, I was initially skeptical about going ahead to upgrade, not sure if I will not lose my files, including all my contents. But, after going through the tutorials Word Press provides to make the upgrade trouble free several times to be sure I understood every thing to the letter, I was convinced I could get it done without any problem.

You see, I have worked hard on this blog and it is beginning to increase in google ranking, with a ranking of 3, which I plan to get to six before this year ends. It will not be funny if I ended up losing it simply because of a mistake in upgrading my Word Press blog – this was why I was initially foot dragging on the upgrade.

Even after satisfying myself that I understood the set up tutorial from Word Press, I still called on a friend who is very knowledgeable about WordPress and blogging generally. Fortunately for me, he had recently successfully upgraded his blog to the new version.

He recommended I used Word Press automatic upgrade plugin, which was what he used.

The Process Of Upgrading My Blog To WordPress 2.7

I found the plugin when I made a search for it from WordPress plugin directory http://www.wordpress.org/extend/plugins/ and downloaded it to my desktop.

It was in a zipped folder, so I had to unzip it. Then I opened my ftp software. By the way, I use coreftp, which is an excellent File Transfer Protocol software. I have been using it for some months now and I haven’t had any problem with it. It’s very simple to understand and easy to use. So, even though I don’t have any affiliation with them I recommend it to you.

If you don’t know what ftp is, it is a software used to upload files to your hosting server. To be able to upgrade your blog to WordPress 2.7, you will need to use an ftp software. And like I’ve said, coreftp is excellent and you can download and install a free copy from their site, www.coreftp.com.

Using my ftp software, I uploaded the WordPress automatic upgrade plugin to the ‘plugin folder’, which is located in my WordPress folder. This is how I did the upload:

After opening my ftp software, I clicked on my www. folder which is my blog’s root directory, where there is the WP-content folder, among other folders and files. By clicking on the WP-content folder revealed the plugin folder. Then I uploaded the WordPress automatic update plugin to the WP- content folder in my hosting server.

After the successful upload, I found the automatic update plugin in the plugin section in my blog. I activated it and followed the steps it outlined to update my blog to 2.7.

They were simple and easy to understand instructions to follow. The plugin has the ability to backup your blog’s files and folders so that if something should go wrong in the updating process you will not lose your blog’s contents. It is important you don’t skip the step of allowing the plugin to backup your blog.

There were about three steps the plugin took me through in the process of updating my blog, before the final step, which was to complete the update.

From what I had read in the WordPress update tutorial, which is provided to enable people update their blogs successfully, I was expecting that after I had clicked on the last button to complete the update process, I would be taking to a page where I will receive further information to allow me log into my updated blog.

But what happed shocked me. A blank page came up instead. Initially, I thought my Internet connection had broken, but that wasn’t the problem, the Internet connection was working perfectly well.

I typed in the url of my blog in the browser, again, only a blank page came up. I rushed to another computer, typed in my url, and again, the same blank page was what showed up – no further instruction was given.

I was griped with fear when it dawned on me that I may have just lost my blog, a number 3 page ranking blog that I have laboured to build, a blog with great promise for the future!

I quickly called my friend to tell him what happened. He didn’t know what could have happened as he didn’t obviously experience what had happened to me. However, been a great friend that he is, he promised to look at it later.

But I was still terribly worried. The worry would have been less if it had also happened to my friend, for he would have easily known what to do. Again, it would have been less if I had manually backed up my blog, instead of using the plugin to do it, which I’m not sure it did.

Some time later, as I looked on my desktop, I saw a ray of hope. There was a backup folder of my blog on the desktop – it was really spirit lifting to know the plugin had actually saved a copy of my blog, and that I hadn’t lost it afterall!

Then I thought of looking at my ftp to see what had happened to my www. folder in my server. Again, to my pleasant surprise, everything was as it was before I started the upgrade, in addition to all folders and files remaining the same, there was also a zipped folder of the new WordPress version 2.7 saved there.

Quickly, I downloaded and unzipped it. There was a read-me file in it, which explained how I could go ahead to upgrade my blog, however, their advanced tutorial on how to upgrade to 2.7, which can be found at http://codex.wordpress.org/Upgrading_WordPress_Extended is more detailed.

I had to upload the new WordPress folder to my server in place of the old. But I had to be careful not to delete or overwrite certain files and folders, while deleting others.

The advanced tutorial spelt out clearly the folders and files in the old WordPress folder to delete and replace with those from the new WordPress, and the ones that must remain from the old WordPress:

DO NOT DELETE these folders and files:

* wp-config.php file;
* wp-content folder;
* wp-images folder–only older installations from 1.5.x days will have this folder;
* wp-includes/languages/ folder–if you are using a language file, and it is here rather than in wp-content/languages/, do not delete this folder (you might want to move your language files to wp-content/languages/ for easier upgrading in the future);.
* .htaccess file–if you have added custom rules to your .htaccess, do not delete it;
* Custom Content and/or Plugins–if you have any images or other custom content or Plugins inside the wp-content folder, do NOT delete them.

Delete these Files and Folders:

* wp-* (except for those above), readme.html, wp.php, xmlrpc.php, and license.txt; files; Typically files in your root or wordpress folder. Again, don’t delete the wp-config.php file.
* wp-admin folder;
* wp-includes folder; If you have a language file here, remember not to delete the wp- includes/languages/ folder
* wp-content/cache folder; You only see this folder if you are upgrading FROM WordPress 2.0.
* wp-content/plugins/widgets folder; You only see this folder if you previously installed the Sidebar Widgets plugin. The Sidebar Widgets code conflicts with the built-in widget ability.

Again, I met another challenge when I attempted to delete some folders that had items in them using ftp. Most ftps, including the one I use don’t allow deletion of folders that are not empty. To find a way around this, I went to their website, i.e., www.coreftp.com and from their Q & A page I found the solution.

I had to right click on the folder I wanted to delete. From the drop down menu that came up, I located Directory Command, then List Mode, and then I chose Advanced.

Doing that for each folder I needed to delete enabled me to delete them. And after uploading the required folders and files from the New WordPress version 2.7, my blog had been successfully upgraded to Word Press 2.7.

What a joy that filled my heart when my blog started showing immediately again after I pointed it to /wp-admin/upgrade.php!

That was my experience of upgrading my WordPress blog to the new 2.7 version. You can draw from my experience to upgrade yours successfully if you haven’t done so already.

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