The latest version of Drupal is 6.4 The version 6.x has many advantage like security fix and many new features. So, its recommended to upgrade your Drupal site to latest Drupal version, currently 6.4 Upgrading to Drupal 6.x is must easier than previous version upgrade. Here is the step by step guide to upgrade your Drupal 5.x web site to Drupal 6.x

Before you start upgrade process from Drupal 5.x to Drupal 6.x version, read this carefully:

1. Make sure you meet minimum requirement for Drupal 6.x.
   Web Server:
   Apache 1.3 or Apache 2.x hosted on Unix/Linux or Windows.
   IIS5 or IIS6, IIS7 if PHP is configured correctly.

   PHP:
   Recommended: PHP 5.2 or higher.
   Required: PHP version 4.3.5 or higher.

   Database Server:
   MySQL 4.1 or MySQL 5.0
   PostgreSQL 7.4 or higher

2. Make a backup of all files and database. If anything goes wrong during upgrade process, than you can restore your Drupal 5.x web site. Must make a copy “Files” and “Site” Folder from the Drupal installation directory on your local system.
3. If your site needs some particular module, ensure that those modules are available because few Drupal 5.x modules are still not available.
4. Disable all contributed modules and set your Drupal site to default theme such as Garland or Bluemarine. You should upgrade modules and themes after you have completed core Drupal upgradation.
5. Login in Drupal 5.x web site administrator panel. Navigate to modules setting page. Disable update_status module and uninstall this modul
6. Again in Drupal 5.x admin panel, navigate to Logs -> Status report
   If there is any problem fix it before upgrade.
7. Upgrade all installed modules to its latest version available for Drupal 5.x
8. Set your Drupal site to off-line mode. This can be done as follow. In Drupal admin panel Navigate to : Administrator -> Site Configuration -> Site maintenance -> select site status as off-line -> Save Configuration.
9. Now using any FTP delete all files and folder from the Drupal installation directory.
10. Download the latest version of Drupal 6.x from drupal.org. Unpack the files and upload it to the Drupal installation directory.
11. Copy and paste “Files” and “Site” Folder from your backup to Drupal installation directory.
12. If other system files such as .htaccess or robots.txt were customized, re-create the modifications in the new versions of the files using the backups.
13. Run update.php by visiting http://www.example.com/update.php (replace www.example.com with your Drupal installation's domain name and path).
14. Replace all custom old modules to their latest version compatible with version 6.x
15. Re-enable custom and contributed modules and re-run update.php to update custom and contributed database tables.
16. Upload any new theme for your site and enable it.
17. Now you have updated your Drupal 5.x website to Drupal 6.x . Now login to admin panel and set your website status to online mode.

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