# Upgrading

Usually an update or upgrade your SilverStripe installation just means overwriting files and updating your
database-schema. Please see your [upgrade notes and changelogs](/changelogs).

## Process

Never update a website on the live server without trying it on a development copy first.

*  Check if any modules (e.g. blog or forum) in your installation are compatible and need to be upgraded as well
*  Backup your database
*  Backup your website
*  Download the new release and uncompress it to a temporary folder
*  Leave custom folders like *mysite* or *themes* in place.
*  Identify system folders in your webroot (`cms`, `framework` and any additional modules). 
* Delete existing system folders (or move them outside of your webroot)
* Extract and replace system folders from your download (Deleting instead of "copying over" existing folders
ensures that files removed from the new SilverStripe release are not persisting in your installation)

*  Visit http://yoursite.com/dev/build/?flush=1 to rebuild the website Database
*  Check if you need to adapt your code to changed APIs
*  Check if you need to adapt your code to changed CSS/HTML/JS

* See [common-problems](common-problems) for a list of likely mistakes that could happen during an upgrade.

##  Decision Helpers

How easy will it be to update my project? It's a fair question, and sometimes a difficult one to answer.  This page is
intended to help you work out how hard it will be to upgrade your site.

*  If you've made custom branches of the core, or of a module, it's going to be harder to upgrade.
*  The more custom features you have, the harder it will be to upgrade.  You will have to re-test all of those features
and some of them may have broken.
*  Customisations of a well defined type - such as custom page types or custom blog widgets - are going to be easier to
upgrade than customisations that use sneaky tricks, such as the subsites module.

## Related

*  [Release Announcements](http://groups.google.com/group/silverstripe-announce/)
*  [Blog posts about releases on silverstripe.org](http://silverstripe.org/blog/tag/release)