You can restore your site back to its original state and, once you know that there are problems, you can solve them on a slower pace somewhere else – again, using the support forums of WordPress and reporting bugs to plugin authors.

Even adding the Recent Posts to the sidebar near the top would do the trick. I’m assuming you are running widgets.

Deactivating plugins and activating them one at a time is straight out of the Wordpress upgrade docs. Of course you can skip those steps but it is a gamble. I’ve had quite a few plugins blow up a blog when reactivated and had to go in a back door and turn them off.

All this being said, “I still love Wordpress.”

@Dave-you’re not in hefty company. You are in your rightful place on this blog at least. As for the posts…I am doing some re-org of the blog tonight to change some things around. Instead of sticking page 1 as its own page, I am likely going to stick an intro post to the top of page one with posts below. Been mulling that one over awhile myself…Just haven’t found the style I like yet. FTR–I AM going to add some graphics though…just haven’t had time.

Yes, I notice the inclusion in the blogroll, you put me with some pretty hefty company. I’ll try and keep the lab up to snuff.

BTW, I’m an old sort of sod, when I come to your blog, is there a way to find the posts without clicking on the archieves?

there are a few anti-spam plugins out there, ranging from blacklist to captchas. My experience in this area is rather limited, so I don’t have any particular solution for you.

I see now… the way I do the upgrade is way simpler.

1. No need to backup database, as it is a part of routine daily backup. Skip.
2. Deactivate all plugins. I don’t do it. There is no need, as plugins aren’t getting upgraded themselves.
3. Copy the upgrade files to the server. No way to avoid this. But there are ways to speed it up. If you do a full upload over FTP, it might take a while, since there are plenty of small files. Alternatively you can either upload only the changed files (the list is often published with release notes or on support forums or can be easily established with diff/SVN). Or you can upload the tar.gz/zip archive to the server and unpack it there, if you have shell access. Time saver.
4. Run the upgrade script. Usually takes about two seconds.
5. One plugin at a time? No way! That’s why I don’t deactivate them in the first place. If something is broken, something is broken. If not – then not.
6. Troubleshooting issues is much simpler if you have access to the log file or display errors on the main page. Problems are usually easier to localize if you spot the area where they happen – RSS feeds, comments, sidebar, search, etc.

If you run a very important and highly popular web site, than you might want to have a test platform – a replica of your web site with all data (daily dump is fine) and plugins and theme. Then try to upgrade it and see if you have any problems.

Also, if you are worried about the upgrade, give it a day or two – most serious problems will be spotted by other people and reported both in Trac and on the support forums.

Thanks for letting me know how you found me! Hope all’s well for you there!

@Dave-Yep. I love the WP guys for what they’ve created, but I am hoping for less updates in my Christmas stocking this year! (Notice that I blogrolled your blog lab–) Thanks for creating a good solid resource for REALTORS who are blogging.