What does update-image.php do exactly?

I have had nothing but trouble with updating the image module from Drupal 4.5.2 install to anything in 4.6.x. I have been trying since 4.6 came out and have tried all the CVS versions and every combination of everything that I can come up with. I tried to deceipher the update-image.php code to figure what exactly it does so that I can possibly make the change myself manually. I have about 5,000 pics on my site and about 100 users use it (mostly to look at pics), so I really don't want to get left in the dust when 4.7.0 comes out. In addition, I cannot update my server to any newer versions of linux because they all use php5. I noticed that the README file for the update says that the script is written to update from 4.4.0, so I don't konw if this is part of the problem.

I have gotten it to partially work, but it returns a whole lost of files that is says it cannot copy (and it's not a permissions issue) and seems to timeout after 30 seconds, logging an error in my apache error log saying that includes/file.inc makes it time out after 30 seconds.

Is it possible for me to just make the changes manually? Can someone interpret the update-imate.php script for me?

I would GREATLY appreciate any help.

Thanks!

Jeremy