Dotnetnuke - Upgrading Website (TUTORIAL)
Part 3 of 3 :
Once you have secured your website from accidental upgrading (See Part 1), and you have made the appropriate changes to your web.config file (See Part 2), you can start the upgrade process. For dotnetnuke websites, this involves downloading the version of the install files, unzipping the files for that version, and uploading them over the top of the current installation.
To trigger the upgrade to the new version, open your browser and enter the domain of your website followed by "/Install/InstallWizard.aspx" as the URL. (http://www.domainname.com/install/installwizard.aspx) An example is shown below for an upgrade of Dotnetnuke from version 4.4.0 to version 4.5.3 :
In this case, I have chosen to use a custom installation, and have clicked on the "Next" button to continue.
To check the file permissions on your website, click the "Test Permissions" link...
If the permissions have been set correctly, then the acknowledgement is shown below in green text... "Your site passed the permissions check." Click on the "Next" button to continue the installation process.
The next step is choosing the database you will be using for the Dotnetnuke installation. In this case I am installing this on a Small Business Server 2003, premium edition with SQL Server running. The server is "localhost", and my Dotnetnuke folder where I have uploaded all the unzipped 4.5.3 files is called "Dotnetnuke_au". My User ID is "dnn452" and my password... well that's a secret... 
Clicking on the checkbox for Database owner and the database configuration is finished. All we need to do is to test the database connection by clicking on the "Test Database Connection" link as shown below :
If the database has been configured correctly, then the acknowledgement is shown below in green text... "Connection Success". Click on the "Next" button to continue the installation process.
The next step runs through several Database Installation Scripts. Click the "Next" button to continue.
This next step is for configuring the SuperUser account or Host account.
After providing a password, and again confirming that password, a valid email address is entered and the "Next" button is clicked to continue the installation.
The choice of optional modules defaults to just the Links and HTML modules.
In this case, I have chosen almost every module, but you can obviously choose whatever modules you wish to install. Keep in mind that only a few Dotnetnuke versions ago, we had no choice but to install all modules. This method, therefore allows you to install a very compact version of a website, only installing the modules that you really need to use on the website. Click on the "Next" button to continue the installation.
This next step is for configuring the Administrator account or Admin account.
After providing a password, and again confirming that password, a valid email address is entered and the "Next" button is clicked to continue the installation.
For this version of Dotnetnuke, there is no optional skins or containers to install, so just click on the "Next" button to continue the installation.
For this version of Dotnetnuke, there is no additional language packs to install, so just click on the "Next" button to continue the installation.
Well, that is it... the dotnetnuke website installation is completed. Click on the "Finished (Goto Site) link to visit your upgraded website.
Finally, for the upgrade that was run from version 4.5.2 to 4.5.3, the zip file for version 4.5.3 was downloaded from the Dotnetnuke website (www.dotnetnuke.com) and the files were unzipped, and uploaded to the website running 4.5.2. Then the URL below was used to trigger the upgrade process which was very short as shown in the image below :
