Joomla 1.5 Upgrade

Upgrading Joomla 1.5 to the latest stable version

More information about this can be found in our tutorial on how to upgrade Joomla 1.5 to the latest version.

How to upgrade from Joomla 1.0.x to Joomla 1.5?

In this tutorial we will show you how to upgrade from Joomla 1.0.x to Joomla 1.5.x.

Note that it is highly recommended to backup your existing Joomla web site before you proceed with the migration process.

The Joomla upgrade to 1.5 will preserve ONLY the content of your Joomla 1.0.x. No components/modules/plugins/templates you have will be available in the upgraded Joomla 1.5.

Step 1: Install the Migrator component

The first step is to install the Migrator component to your existing Joomla 1.0.x web site. You can download the Migrator component here.

More information on how to install a component in Joomla 1.0.x can be found in our Joomla 1.0 tutorial.

Once you have installed the Migrator component, you will be able to access it from the Components menu > Migrator.

The migrator component allows you to migrate your current Joomla 1.0.x data to the Joomla 1.5 database format.

Step 2: Create Migration SQL File

To proceed with the database migration click the Create Migration SQL File button located at the bottom of the Migrator component page:

The next step is to download the extracted SQL from your 1.0.x Joomla:

You can now download your SQL dump by clicking on the Download link available on the right section of the page and upload it into your Joomla! 1.5 installation. Later, when importing this SQL file into your 1.5 installation, make sure to select Load Migration Script and use the prefix '_jos' (by default).

Step 3: Make a clean Joomla 1.5 installation

Next you should perform a manual Joomla 1.5 installation. For the purpose of this tutorial let's install Joomla 1.5 in a folder called dev.

Download the latest Joomla 1.5 package from the official website and extract it in the dev folder.

Open the dev folder by going to http://www.your-website.com/dev. You will see the Joomla start installation screen. Select your language, you should already have a database and user to fill them in.

Step 4. Perform the migration

Proceed with the installation until you reach Step 6: Configuration:

Fill the name of your web site, your admin e-mail and password details.

The key part here is to choose the Load Migration Script option:

Fill the old table prefix _jos and leave the encoding unchanged unless needed and you are familiar with this option.

By clicking on the [Browse] button you should select the Joomla 1.0.x migration dump you downloaded earlier.

Make sure to check the This script is a Joomla! 1.0 migration script. check box as well.

Proceed by clicking on the [Upload and execute] button.

Once the data is imported you should see the following screen:

Click on the [Next] button near to the upper right corner.

You need to completely remove the installation directory.

Now when you open the front end of your newly installed Joomla 1.5 you will see all the articles from the previous Joomla.