Upgrade to WordPress 2.3 and Tag Support

I’ve held off from this for a while but I’ve got a few blogs I need to do it with so I’m writing this guide more for myself than anything.

• Install the “Maintenance Mode” plugin – it really is quite good, activate it and put the blog into maintenance mode.
• As my database is probably quite large I’m not going to use PHPMyAdmin to back it up, I shall use SSH.mysqldump –add-drop-table -h mysqlhostserver -u mysqlusername -p databasename

  And then entering my MySQL password, I was correct my database is almost 13MB.

• WordPress always recommend you deactivate plugins, as they may not be compatible after the upgrade. I’ve never done this for a single upgrade, but it appears there is a first time for everything with the upgrade to WordPress 2.3+ Universal Tag Warrior isn’t compatible (WordPress 2.3 has built in tag support), so be sure to deactivate UTW first – I didn’t and had to work around it!
• Download the latest and greatest WordPress, I’ve downloaded it using wget, directly to a folder on the server and unpacked it.
• I’ve then moved the wp-content folder out of that folder purely because I know it needs special care, before copying the rest of the unpacked files straight over my original installation (making sure it doesn’t overwrite wp-config.php).
• I’m not particularly interested in the themes, but I do know that akismet is slightly different so I’ve also copied the akismet.php over the top of my original one.
• Visit your upgrade page http://domain.com/folder/wp-admin/upgrade.php, and step through the upgrade.
• If you deactivated Ultimate Tag Warrior earlier then you’ll probably want to import your tags now, do this following this tutorial.
• Deactivate maintenance mode and tinker with your theme as necessary (you’ll probably want to read this tutorial on adding WordPress 2.3 tags to your theme) – Enjoy!