Part 7: Upgrading vBulletin

Upgrading vBulletin

From time to time it will be necessary to upgrade your vBulletin installation to the latest version, either to gain new features or to fix newly discovered bugs in PHP, MySQL or vBulletin itself.

You can upgrade to the latest version of vBulletin 3 from the following vBulletin versions:

• Any previous version of vBulletin 3, from version 3.0.0 Beta 3 to the current version.
• Any version of vBulletin 2 from version 2.2.9 and newer. If your vBulletin version is older than 2.2.9, you will need to upgrade to at least vBulletin 2.2.9 before you can upgrade to vBulletin 3.

The upgrade process differs depending upon the version of vBulletin currently installed on your web server. Sites running vBulletin 2 will need to follow slightly different instructions from sites already running vBulletin 3 and upgrading to the latest version.

When upgrading, the first step is always the same, in that you must log in to the vBulletin Members' Area and download the latest vBulletin package available, as described in the installation instructions.

Warning:

We strongly recommend that you back up your database prior to any upgrade.

A document detailing how to back up your database is available in the Technical Documents section of the vBulletin Manual's Appendices, here.