What are the disadvantages of not upgrading to 2.7?

  • …apart from the obvious. I like the new admin interface and so on (vast improvement) but…

    I’m new to WordPress and only downloaded 2.6 a few weeks ago. In that time I’ve almost completed development of my new site and ignored reminders to upgrade to 2.6.5. Now there is 2.7. Well I installed 2.7 on a friend’s blog I’m developing and of course many of the plug-ins don’t work.

    My question is what are the disadvantages of not upgrading? Having just completed my new design in 2.6 what are the implications of installing 2.6 on my server instead of 2.7? I have a number of plug-ins, though most is hard-coded, so this must surely mean that
    a) I have to uninstall all non-working plug-ins;
    b) wait for the developer to develop a new version and
    c) stay on top of this by upgrading to every new version when it comes out.

    Don’t get me wrong. I welcome development and improvements but as a new WP user I’m a little concerned at the admin. I was hoping to just develop this site once and leave it to manage my content as I won’t have time in the future to keep up with new releases. This is the one time I will be developing my site for the forseeable future (I live on a boat with internet access only when I can grab it!).

    Any tips on upgrading, lead-times between release and upgrade, keeping abreast of updates to plug-ins and so on? At the very least could someone allay my fears at not upgrading?!!

Viewing 7 replies - 1 through 7 (of 7 total)

  • One thing you have to understand, is that regular upgrades are part of the game. In general with any software but certainly also with WordPress. Once or twice a year there’s a “major” upgrade and a few other times smaller upgrades with mainly bigfixes and security fixes.

    Not upgrading is not an option. The security risk of doing that is just too big. WordPress is a popular piece of software and once a vulnerability is known and you have your site out there unpatched you run a great risk.

    So I would advice strongly to always upgrade. Having said that, sometimes it’s not too bad to wait a few days if it’s not an urgent security upgrade. Then you will have some time to see if the upgrade doesn’t create any other problems, can plugin authors upgrade their plugins (if necessary), etc

    If you are not willing to spend some time maintaining your site it’s better to not use any CMS to run the site and just build plain HTML or PHP webpages. (because all CMS systems need maintaining).

    But on the positive side: normally upgrading does not take much time.

    If there are security problems, those will go into the 2.7 family and likely not be back ported to the 2.6 line.

    Theme things you developed should, for the most part, be okay in 2.7 but see https://codex.www.ads-software.com/Migrating_Plugins_and_Themes_to_2.7

    WordPress roadmap: https://www.ads-software.com/about/roadmap/

    Note: Once at 2.7, upgrade to subsequent versions is done with click of a button.

    Here are some more reasons why you should upgrade, security is one, convenience is another (auto upgrades in the future makes life easier), and mostly, many search engines and directories, including Google and Technorati, are considering penalizing older versions of WordPress due to the security issues. Spam sites are not likely to upgrade regularly is their thinking.

    And MichaelH is right. Upgrades are just part of life. Your computer does it on a regular basis, as does all the software you use. Why should blogware be any different. ??

    Thread Starter demonboy

    (@demonboy)

    Hi all,

    thanks for your replies. I think I wrote that in eager but nervous anticipation of going for it and installing 2.7 on my server. Well, I’ve done it and it all seems well so far, aside from a few problems already mentioned in the forum. I have to say the backend makes SO much more sense and is a pleasure to use!

    Now if I can just get rid of that annoying right-border on my images I’m laughing ??

    I suggest waiting a few weeks before upgrading wordpress. 2.7 blew a few plugins out of the water, since I know only limited code, I have to wait for plugin updates.
    When you see your plugins Updated to 2.7, do the upgrade as quickly as possible.

    What are these plugins that aren’t compatible.
    I think we use too many plugins generally. I use 10 or so and they all ported fine with 2.7

    At this point I would say that the down side of upgrading is greater (lots of folks seem to be having problems with the visual editor – making it impossible to continue working your site) than the upside of upgrading and all the new bells and whistles. I upgraded on my test site, but no way am I going to risk my main site. I’m not a geek, nor a code jockey, nor a php wizard. I need my site to work with a minimal amount trouble-shooting.

Viewing 7 replies - 1 through 7 (of 7 total)
  • The topic ‘What are the disadvantages of not upgrading to 2.7?’ is closed to new replies.

Tags