By Sam308 on

The following download is provided for those users who do not want to overwrite all of the files in their Drupal 6.15 installation. Using a file comparison utility, the following zip file contains only the date modified files for the latest release of Drupal 6.16.

Upload the new files to your Drupal site, then log into your site as the administrator and run update.php. A link to the update.php file can be found on the Administer » Site building » Modules page.

After running update.php, your Available Updates and Status Report functions will indicate that you are running the latest Drupal release version.

Drupal 6.15 to 6.16 Upgrade Files Only

Note:
You can also download any of the other Drupal 6.x upgrade files from the same page. For reference purposes, see the following drupal.org support topic page: Drupal 6.x Upgrade - Files Only

Sam308

Past Topics for Reference
Drupal 6.14 to 6.15 Upgrade - Files Only
http://drupal.org/node/663396

Drupal 6.12 to 6.13 Upgrade - Files Only
http://drupal.org/node/507682

Drupal 6.11 to 6.12 Upgrade - Files Only
http://drupal.org/node/462634

Drupal 6.10 to 6.11 Upgrade - Files Only
http://drupal.org/node/449382

⋅ Categories: Drupal 6.x

Comments

Old Man’s picture

Old Man commented

I like this and it would have saved me a lot of time... BUT, I am not familiar with your website, and don't download files from an unfamiliar site. I would rather download those files directly from a Drupal module page. I'm not making accusations at all, just cautious.

Sam308’s picture

Sam308 commented

That's why I included the Past Topics for Reference so one could read other user comments. This process of upgrading is straight forward, simple, and works well, taking only a few minutes to upgrade a site.

I have been upgrading multiple Drupal installations using this method for some time now and wanted to share my simple solution to upgrading Drupal websites. The website, where the download upgrade files reside, is a site related to Microsoft Excel utility software. It just happens to be a convenient place where I offer the upgrade downloads and other related Drupal utilities.

Maybe in the future, the maintainers of Drupal will offer this as a viable upgrade path in addition to the current one.

Old Man’s picture

Old Man commented

What you've done should be a standard way to present upgrade for the Drupal core. A bit faster and more efficient than having to delete and reinstall everything.

How about it, Drupal core maintainers?

heine’s picture

heine commented

I don't quite see how this is more efficient / easier.

How about it, Drupal core maintainers?

Don't hold your breath :)

Old Man’s picture

Old Man commented

This last upgrade was not easy for me. Not everyone who uses Drupal is a programmer or "techie." I just read this description for Drupal 7 on Acquia's site, "the Drupal community has focused on improving the Drupal user experience, making Drupal more friendly to a less technical user-base and rolling those improvements into Drupal 7." For some reason, many open source programmers seem to think that the user experience should be somewhat rough around the edges.

Making Drupal easier to use and upgrade should be the ultimate goal to bring more users to Drupal. Deleting files, replacing them, and then tracking down all the errors is NOT easy. It wasn't just me that had difficulties with this last core upgrade, but many others too. Online games have a one-click upgrade button that replaces all pertinent files for you. While each installation of Drupal is slightly different, whether it's a multi-site or runs through c-Panel, or whatever. But there is no reason that this can't be the ultimate goal of Drupal to have a one-click install and upgrade.

To say this can't be done is just nonsense.

heine’s picture

heine commented

Making a minor version upgrade easier is a good thing. I did not and cannot dispute that.

I just don't see how "changed files only" is easier (and safer) than a full replacement.

omar86’s picture

omar86 commented

I ftp'd just the files that have changed from 6.15 to 6.16 and ran update.php

Works like a charm ...

heine’s picture

heine commented

How make the "changed files" packages this easier? If you were to go by the overwrite route, the tarball from Drupal.org would work just as well.

HOWEVER: We tell people to remove core files because 1) FTP is so unreliable and 2) when files are removed, overwrite would retain them. Because of 1) some files may not be overwritten at all and I've personally witnessed FTP creating amalgams of old and new files.

The chances of getting an upgrade wrong and the site in an inconsistent state are much higher with overwrite, then delete and upload/restore sites.

Old Man’s picture

Old Man commented

There is ABSOLUTELY NO REASON that a better upgrade method can't be implemented, with checksums or whatever method is needed to ensure a correct install/upgrade.

But this last upgrade I had a problem with the recommended delete and upload/restore method. It took many wasted hours to get my site restored. The version upgrade before that worked perfectly. Why one and not the other? I have no idea.

I have dozens of programs installed across the internet that upgrade themselves with one button click, no matter where the files are stored... why can't Drupal? We are not all programmers... if you want more people to use Drupal, then make it easier to use.

heine’s picture

heine commented

There *is* an effort to provide easier upgrades.

However, the "changed files only"-tarballs, you asked for in http://drupal.org/node/732174#comment-2718330 isn't one of those efforts. That's all I'm trying to get across.

Old Man’s picture

Old Man commented

I didn't mean to imply that this was the only way to improve the upgrade experience. All I am really asking for is an easier way to make upgrades. I really don't care how it is done, just that the current method has its problems.