Easiest To Just Start Anew With 2.1?

  • I started working on a site two weeks ago (using WP 2.2, I believe) and created about 20 posts. Nothing published on the web, yet. Yesterday I botched my upgrade — and although I have ample backups of my old site, I’m feeling that it might be better (in the long run) just to start anew with 2.1. (Other factors: My technical skills arent’ great. Hosting is at Yahoo. I didn’t make substantial changes to the themes — Andreas Vicklund’s 3-column and Blue Zinfandel are the one’s I’m working with. No links yet established. About 20 categories. Mac OSX.)

    If I can just install 2.1 from scratch, what’s the best way to import the few old files most essential to me?

    If it’s really important for me to upload the old backup and go through the (tortuous!) FTP file deletion and overwriting, I’d appreciate any instructions/tutorials that go beyond the 5-step detailed ones on your site. (I’m CLUELESS with this!)

    Many thanks for any guidance!

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)

  • Very bad combination (not-so-good techie skills and Yahoo). Y. is a challenge even for seasoned wordpressers…

    Starting a “brand new 2.1” and then trying to import the existing content from your present blog will be exactly as much PITA as an upgrade…

    If you want a total new: start it over and re-create the content in the new. For the themes: just copy them over in the new install.

    FYI: the 2.0.x series (latest 2.0.7) will be supported till 2010. At the moment if you are not on the geeky side – forget 2.1 and go with 2.0.7.

    Moderator Samuel Wood (Otto)

    (@otto42)

    www.remarpro.com Admin

    The upgrade process from 2.07 to 2.1 is basically like this:

    1. Backup database.
    2. Backup all files from blog directory (via FTP, probably).
    3. Deactivate all plugins. This is *not* optional.
    4. Delete wp-includes and wp-admin.
    5. Delete all the WordPress files in main blog directory, except .htaccess and wp-config.php. Obviously don’t delete anything you didn’t backup in step 2, or anything you have in there that’s separate from WordPress.
    6. Upload all of the WordPress files. Overwrite anything that is in the wp-content directory which is included as part of WordPress.
    7. Load your admin page. It’ll tell you that you need to upgrade and provide a link to do so. Do so.
    8. Rebuild permalinks. This *is* important, some things won’t work unless you do this.
    9. For every plugin, go to its page and make sure that you have the latest version and that it’s compatible with 2.1. Upgrade the plugin before reactivating it. In my case, I had to upgrade 3 different plugins (Bad Behavior, UTW, and something else I forgot). In this way, reactivate all your plugins, or find new ones if they’re not compatible. Activating incompatible plugins can lead to bad results. Not devastating results, but still bad ones. ??
    10. It’s not unlikely that your page will have some errors on it. These you have to solve one by one.

    Those last two steps take all the time. It’s not a smooth transition, but change never is.

    Frankly, if you haven’t published yet and don’t have a lot of data, I’d go with a fresh install and then import the posts you want to keep via the old copy/paste method. ??

    Thread Starter elliotlapin

    (@elliotlapin)

    Moshu and Otto

    MANY thanks for your good counsel!!!

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)
  • The topic ‘Easiest To Just Start Anew With 2.1?’ is closed to new replies.