Upgrading from 1.5.2 to 1.6

[ajensen27]

I have a dilemma. I want to upgrade our shop from 1.5.2 to 1.6 but I have done a lot of custom modifications to both the front end and back end and don't want to lose those modifications. So I don't want to just do a one click upgrade.

 

What would be the best way to do the upgrade so that I can work on the 1.6 front and back end while my store is still active and running 1.5.2? I also don't want to lose any data from my current store (i.e. customers, orders, categories, products, etc) when upgrading. Is this possible?

 

Should I create a new 1.6 store on a localhost?

 

Is there a way to create a store in 1.6 on a sub-directory of my current domain and use my current database? Or was the database structure and tables completely changed as well in 1.6?

 

And ideas or help is much appreciated!

 

Thanks!

 

Alex

[El Patron]

Hi Alex,

 

You have the correct idea.

 

Create copy of production shop into another workspace for test shop.  There you test upgrade process, theme configuration etc.

 

With this experience you will know better how to proceed.

 

useful link:

http://doc.prestashop.com/display/PS16/Updating+PrestaShop

[ajensen27]

Thanks El Patron... I'll give it a try and if I have any questions I'll pose them here.

 

Thanks!

[ajensen27]

Quick question... So you're saying create a new folder (i.e. "test") in my root folder on my domain and then copying all of the folders/files from my existing installation and pasting them in this "test" folder? Then do the upgrade to 1.6 on that installation?

[El Patron]

Quick question... So you're saying create a new folder (i.e. "test") in my root folder on my domain and then copying all of the folders/files from my existing installation and pasting them in this "test" folder? Then do the upgrade to 1.6 on that installation?

 

no,

 

if you already run in folder, then create in another folder

 

if you run as root, then run in subdomain or other space where test is in root.

 

this lessens issues of rebuilding images...which I avoid like the plague...

 

the goal is not to recreate thumbs etc in prestashop both when you build your test copy and when you move to production.

[bellini13]

you need to copy your website content and your database to a separate instance, not just your website content.

 

The idea being that you should have a completely stand alone test store (aka 'sandbox') that you can play in