Upgrading your software in general has many benefits and DotNetNuke is no different. As with other apps and software you will see some obvious improvements.
Performance
Each release of DotNetNuke is installed by thousands of users and with that kind of install base people quickly notice any kind of performance issues that will effect the core. Nearly every release of DotNetNuke has addressed and resolved some kind of performance hit that will slow down your site.
Security
Exploits are a never ending game of cat and mouse and when a vulnerability is discovered in DotNetNuke it is quickly patched. Leaving yourself on an older version leaves you open to attack
Those are some of the standard reasons you will hear about why you should upgrade your software but there are some other reasons you may not know.
Platform enhacements
Each version of DotNetNuke brings forth incredible enhancements both from the user end and the developer end. In DNN 5.x came the jQuery library which allows for Module developers nativly great smooth and great looking user interfaces (UI) and support better ajax handling.
This will also give you access to a greater collection of modules which utilize these features or allow you as a developer to create your own module without creating awkward work-a-rounds.
Features
Plain and simple every new release comes with a slew of new features. Some you may be excited about like use of Telerik’s components for the RadEditor (FCKEditor replacement, seen in the Text/Html module) or developer modules like the RazorHost which allows you to use the new asp.net view engine Razor to write Razor scripts.
Other features are more managerial like with DNN 5.6.2 you can now soft and hard delete users. This will allow you to do a bit of house keeping. There is also my personal favorite where they added SEO friendly 301 page redirects in Page Settings.
There are even more features on the horizon. So be ready!
Fears?
There are many fears about upgrading your DotNetNuke installation. Some of the questions we’ve heard are:
- Will all my modules be compatible?
- Will it run on my server?
- I heard that the new version is slower and buggier, Is that true?
These are easy to answer. DotNetNuke supports IIS 6.0 and IIS 7.5 along with every core module supporting all versions of DotNetNuke. Nearly every 3rd party module is compatible with all the latest versions of DotNetNuke. Many module vendors have even opted to “fork” development into two install packages for their modules so they can support all the latest features.
Simple truth is there will always be bugs in DotNetNuke, as with any software. The beauty of Open Source supported by a core team is we have many cooks in the kitchen finding and resolving these bugs daily. Many of these bugs are so low level you would probably never notice them.
I’ve upgraded my site and its broken. Now what?
Here at Spiffy we see this question regularly. 9 times out of 10 this is because of trying to make major upgrade jumps. Like going from 4.4.0 to 5.6.2. Nothing to fear. Many times a simple file change can fix it. But please ALWAYS BACKUP YOUR SITE before you attempt an upgrade in case anything does go wrong.
We pride ourselves here at Spiffy on being able to upgrade just about any site in less than 1 hour of support. Many of the issues we run into are common and very simple fixes if you are familiar with DotNetNuke.