manual upgrade of plugins

Okay, i’ve been talking with my hosting provider (Hostgator) about the issue with the autoupgrades of plugins and suggested the pureftp to proftp switch. They are looking into it.

However, until this issue gets resolved, I cannot update plugins automatically. And yes, I’ve checked the file permissions, done the file swap, etc. suggested in other threads, all to no avail.

So,I’m resigned to manual updates on all my many plugins. I am upgraded to WP 3.0.4.,which is when the problems with auto-upgrades of plugins began.

That is, I will have to DL each updated plugin and upload them to the appropriate places in the wp-content folders of each one. So, before I do that, do I need to deactivate the current versions while in the admin area of wp?? Or can I simply upload without deactivating and hope for the best?

thx.