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Now that WordPress 2.5.1 has been released (I knew it would happen as soon as I put down my laptop having updated all the old versions to 2.5!) I thought it would be worth sharing with you my failsafe method of getting things upgraded as quickly and easily as possible.

I’m speaking, in this case, to those of us who have root access to our servers (so most likely not those of you on shared hosting, though this is dependent upon your web host too), and know a little about getting into Apache using PuTTy (or similar).

What I do is really quite simple, but it saves a lot of time when you consider that these steps are replicated many times over for each domain, and each blog on each domain (last count I lost count at 25).

The first step, obviously, is to download the most recent version of WordPress from the Wordpress.org website. I usually get the zip version, as microseconds of download time don’t really matter to me yet.

The next stage is to unzip that install locally on my machine.

Then (and this step is less necessary with the new automatic plugin updates, but I still do it to keep things current) I get the latest versions of all the plugins I need and place them into the wp-content/plugins folder, all the while taking care to remove those plugins I don’t need (including “Hello Dolly”).

Then I remove the wp-config-sample.php file from the top level directory – the config file I will need is already sitting in my webserver – and zip up the whole lot.

Then get into your blog’s domain using puTTy and remove the plugins folder in its entirety (so that you know you’ve got the most up-to-date version with no conflicts when you put the new ones in).

Upload the zip file you just made and unzip it – be sure to press “Y” to replace any files of the same name. In about half a second it should complete.

Get on your favourite browser and navigate to the /wp-admin/upgrade.php page and press the obvious buttons.

That’s it completely upgraded for the time being!

There are several other ways you could update: just upload the files that have changed; use a plugin that does it for you.

Its also a good time to export your database and back it up, just in case.

If anyone would like more precise instructions regarding the use of PuTTy then leave a comment and I’ll get this page updated – I’m short on time right now!