CiviCRM Community Forums (archive)

Based on the docs at http://wiki.civicrm.org/confluence/display/CRMDOC/Upgrade+Drupal+Sites+to+2.2 I've been upgrading sites to 2.1 before upgrading them further to 2.2.

This means having to install a complete copy of 2.1 which won't be used, which is painless enough, but adds to the complexity of the upgrade process. After doing it again last night, I started wondering whether this extra step will provide a disincentive to upgrading for some people.

The Drupal6 requirement and relatively quick release of 2.2 after 2.1 for us meant that we didn't touch 2.1 at all on a lot of sites.

Maybe in later versions, we could have CiviCRM process upgrades from earlier versions than just the preceding one?

Your question is similar to questions that I asked

Upgrade vs. Convert
http://forum.civicrm.org/index.php/topic,6433.0.html

Upgrade from 1.9 to 2.1 - path of least resistance
http://forum.civicrm.org/index.php/topic,5491.0.html

And marginally related to:

Cleaning House
http://forum.civicrm.org/index.php/topic,3330.0.html

We now have a 2nd server for testing and are looking at step by step version upgrading and also export and reload.  The most knowledgeable people on this forum have recommend step by step upgrade.  My programming advisers are split.  However, now that we have a test 2.2.2 (soon to be 2.2.3) up I'll certainly try an import for testing and to get a sense of why not.

Dave