Upgrading WordPress can be an exhilarating process if everything goes smoothly. However, getting stuck in the middle without a clue of what to do can be extremely frustrating.

If you are coming from an old version of WordPress and want to upgrade to WordPress 3.0 there are a few options for you. Since WordPress 2.7+ there is an automatic upgrade feature. You can launch the automatic Update by clicking the link in the new version banner (if it’s there) or by going to the Tools -> Upgrade (or Update for version 3) menu. Once you are on the “Update WordPress” page, click the button “Update Automatically” to start the process off. You shouldn’t need to do anything else and, once it’s finished, you will be up-to-date.

If for any reason the automatic update doesn’t work for you then you have to go for a lengthier manual update. To manually update your wordpress installation, follow the steps below:

Step1: Download WordPress 3.0 from the URL wordpress.org/download. And before you install make sure you have access to the FTP client and mysql database

Step2: Create a subfolder in your domain root folder and upload unzipped wordpress 3.0 files to the subfolder. Create a database for new WordPress version on your web server. Rename the wp-config-sample.php file to wp-config.php. Open wp-config.php in a text editor and fill in your database details and upload to the desired folder. Run the WordPress installation script by accessing yourdomain.com/subfolder/wp-admin/install.php.

Step 3: Now you should have done with the installation. Next step is to copy your theme files and paste it to the wp-content folder were you could see the default theme.

Step 4: From now on you need to be very careful, copy you DB tables scripts from your existing blog database and paste it to a notepad. Here you see the links with the original URL yourdomain.com and you need to replace with demo URL yourdomain.com/subfolder/ since you are installing a demo test version in a subfolder. Now you can copy the DB table’s script and execute in your new database that has been created for demo version.

Step 5: Now you have done with wordpress 3.0. All the remaining is plugins and you need to note that all plugins are not compactable for new wordpress 3.0 so do not place all plugin in the wp-content plugin folder if happens then there would be problem in access wp-admin. Through your FTP client you need to create a folder can be named “backup” and place all your existing plugins in the “backup” folder. Then move on your desired plugin one by one to check compatibility by logging into wp-admin. There would be less or more plugins you would have located that are not compactable.

Step 6: Now you are done with your wordpress 3.0 in your demo version. You should be able to access your demo blog with all the post and as well you would be able to access blog wp-admin.

Step 7: At this instant, you can move your live blog files to a different folder or can move to your local machine just for a support. Through FTP client go to your subfolder were you have wordpress 3.0 file and upload all the files in your root folder were you had the files of your previous word press version. Now download your wp-config.php and open in a text editor and fill in your live database details.

Step 8: Now you need to access your mysql demo database and copy the table’s scripts to a notepad and change the URL from yourdomain.com/subfolder/ to yourdomain.com/ and execute it to your live database