A new version of Drupal core is released and you need to install the newest version for your site. In this article I would tell you how to make this upgrade.

Solution

Preparing for upgrade. Please perform the following steps to prepare your site for upgrade:

• Log in as USER 1 (super-admin). This is the first user created in Drupal.
  If you can’t log in to the site as super admin you will need to change update.php script as soon as you upload new files to a server.
• If you update WORKING SITE then set it to maintenance mode:
  • Drupal 4.7: administer → settings
  • Drupal 5.x: Administer → Site configuration → Site maintenance
  • Drupal 6.x: admin/settings/site-maintenance
• Disable (do not remove!) all additional modules – modules that isn’t included to the core:
  • You will need the updates in any case.
  • Drupal 4.7: administer → modules
  • Drupal 5.x: Administer → Site building → Modules
  • Drupal 6.x: admin/build/modules
• Switch your theme to the default one (‘BlueMarine’ for D 4.7 and lower, ‘Garland’ in 5.x):
  • Drupal 4.7: administer → themes
  • Drupal 5.x: Administer → Site building → Themes
  • Drupal 6.x: admin/build/themes
• Remove all languages except English:

• Drupal 5.x: admin/settings/locale
• Drupal 6.x: admin/settings/languag

Upgrade

Note: do not forget to create a backup copy of database and source code first.

That is all!