In theory, you should be able to upgrade all the way to the latest version of the 4 branch (but not 5, as there's no upgrade path from 4 to 5).
In practice though, your best bet is to go to codeplex, download all the major versions between 4.0.3 and the current one, and install them in order, using the standard upgrade method described on the site. I've upgraded from 4.0.2 to 4.5.2 in the past and the main gotcha was making sure that I updated the web.config file with new settings, as well as the schema change. Also be aware that if you've changed any of the umbraco langugae files, those changes will get nuked during the update, so you'll have to re-apply those changes when you're done.
I STRONGLY advise taking a backup of the site, and doing a test upgrade on a local copy of the site before you consider doing it on the live one. There's a lot that can go wrong, and you don't want to kill your live site! Once you've got it working locally and tested that everything is working as it should be, you can do it for real on the live site.
If you upgrade to 4.6 or higher, you'll have to make sure that your website is running in .Net 4.0. There was an XML schema update in version 4.5 as well that means you may have to update your XSLT files (which may be a big job if you have a lot of them). You may also find that you need to update some of your 3rd party DataTypes, as there were a few breaking changes in 4.5.
The best thing is to plan as carefully as you can. Make a list of all of the XSLT on the site, plus all the 3rd Party DataTypes, and check that they still work with the latest version. It may take a while to do the test upgrade, as there will be a lot to change! If memory serves it took me about 2 days to fully update the site I upgraded, as there were a lot of XSLT changes, and some of the DataTypes stopped working, so I had to fix/find replacements for those.
OK - my host says that it is not possible to install anything which uses anything above .NET 3.0... which means I have to use:
Umbraco 4.0.x
IIS 6+
SQL Server 2005+
ASP.NET 2.0+
Full-Trust (High-Trust is the minimum; Medium-Trust will not work)
Ability to set file permissions to include create/read/write (or better) for the user that "owns" the Application Pool for your site (NETWORK SERVICE, typically)
So my host is wrong & I should be able to install Umbraco 4.5.x?
Will installing Umbraco 4.5.x fix the 3rd level url problem I am getting using hostnames (multisites) which I am experiencing at the moment (see link above)?
What version can I upgrade to?
Hi - I am currently running umbraco Umbraco 4.0.3 and need to upgrade to solve the 3rd level navigation problem.
I am currently running the configuration below... what version of umbraco can I upgrade to?
Microsoft Windows 2008 Server Standard
SP2 x86
MS SQL 2005
NET Framework 3.0
IIS 7
MS Visual Studio 2005.
In theory, you should be able to upgrade all the way to the latest version of the 4 branch (but not 5, as there's no upgrade path from 4 to 5).
In practice though, your best bet is to go to codeplex, download all the major versions between 4.0.3 and the current one, and install them in order, using the standard upgrade method described on the site. I've upgraded from 4.0.2 to 4.5.2 in the past and the main gotcha was making sure that I updated the web.config file with new settings, as well as the schema change. Also be aware that if you've changed any of the umbraco langugae files, those changes will get nuked during the update, so you'll have to re-apply those changes when you're done.
I STRONGLY advise taking a backup of the site, and doing a test upgrade on a local copy of the site before you consider doing it on the live one. There's a lot that can go wrong, and you don't want to kill your live site! Once you've got it working locally and tested that everything is working as it should be, you can do it for real on the live site.
If you upgrade to 4.6 or higher, you'll have to make sure that your website is running in .Net 4.0. There was an XML schema update in version 4.5 as well that means you may have to update your XSLT files (which may be a big job if you have a lot of them). You may also find that you need to update some of your 3rd party DataTypes, as there were a few breaking changes in 4.5.
The best thing is to plan as carefully as you can. Make a list of all of the XSLT on the site, plus all the 3rd Party DataTypes, and check that they still work with the latest version. It may take a while to do the test upgrade, as there will be a lot to change! If memory serves it took me about 2 days to fully update the site I upgraded, as there were a lot of XSLT changes, and some of the DataTypes stopped working, so I had to fix/find replacements for those.
Hope that helps!
The bit I was worried about was:
Umbraco 4.5.x
I really am not an expert on server related matters... is ASP.NET 3.5 the same as NET Framework 3.0?
OK - my host says that it is not possible to install anything which uses anything above .NET 3.0... which means I have to use:
Umbraco 4.0.x
Does anyone know if there is a fix in Umbraco 4.0.x for the 3rd level naviagtion problem when using hostnames?
I've been searching for days and have had no luck
There is no .NET Framework 3.0 - there is 1.1, 2.0, 3.5 (which are just extensions to 2.0), 4.0 and currently awaiting 4.5.
So my host is wrong & I should be able to install Umbraco 4.5.x?
Will installing Umbraco 4.5.x fix the 3rd level url problem I am getting using hostnames (multisites) which I am experiencing at the moment (see link above)?
Can anyone please confirm this?
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