Use plugins to Upgrade your WordPress Blog
My themes do not work for versions lower than WordPress 2.5 that is the reason why I get a lot of emails each day asking me why the theme isn’t working for them. I am surprised to know that a lot of you are quite afraid to upgrade to the latest version of WordPress. Maybe because you feel like you are not savvy enough to do this.. or are afraid of messing your blog?
Although manually upgrading your blog by following this step-by-step instruction from the wordpress codex site is easy to follow.. I would highly suggest using plugins to do the work for you.
First, make sure that you back-up your database. I personally use the WordPress DBManager plugin from Lester Chan. This plugin allows you to optimize database, repair database, backup database, restore database, delete backup database , drop/empty tables and run selected queries. Supports automatic scheduling of backing up and optimizing of database.
Next, download and activate the WordPress Automatic Upgrade plugin by Keith Dsouza. Then that’s it.. upgrading to WordPress is that easy indeed!
By the way, the forum I have installed on this site is quite boring..so I think I’m going for bbPress to handle support questions. Sometimes it’s really tiring to answer the same questions over and over again. Do you guys have any suggestions in handling Support Questions?
be patient with the forum. SMF is one of the best out there. It takes significant time to develop a forum community but once you have you’ll be glad you stuck with SMF.
This article was the first I heard you had a forum. Give us some reasons in your post to head in there and see whats going on.
That’s exactly what I do. I actually have a scheduled automatic database backup daily, which gets emailed to me.
My tip is to set up a separate Gmail account for backups only. It keeps the backup files out of the way, but within easy reach should you ever need the to use it. (Just don’t forget your address and password for the Gmail account!)
The automatic upgrade plugin makes updating so painless. It’s great.
I agree with Dan – SMF is highly recommended for forums, like WP is for blogs.
Do you have a FAQ page where you can put the answers to those boring questions you keep getting asked over and over?
Forums take time, longer then blogs to take off. Dont bother with bbPress just stick with your SMF forum
I can help you in that dept if you’d like-and like Trisha said use the FAQ page 
I am using the Automatic Upgrade Plugin and it has worked great until I was upgrading from 2.5 to 2.51, then it totally messed up my blog. To be fair, I think I am to blame because I didn’t upgrade the plugin to the latest version before attempting the WP upgrade. I am sure it works flawlessly again, but I am still at 2.5
[...] 2.6 has been released with exciting new features! If you do not know how to Upgrade manually, then try using plugins to do the job for you. Everything is automated. Easy to [...]
i follow you instruction
First your themes were not working with me .. but now following these steps it is working…thanks
This is recommended to bloggers who are too lazy to upgrade their WP blogs.
Thank you for this information.