In order to get the benefit of bug fixes, new features and general performance improvements, at some point you will want to upgrade your Kartris installation. The simplest way to approach this is to create a brand new web to work with and use as a development web.
1. Kartris files
Create a new web and setup up the files from the latest Kartris zip in it.
2. Database
Take a backup of your present Kartris database, and restore this as a new database.
The Kartris files include .sql scripts to do incremental updates on the database. These are located in the Uploads/Resources folder. You will need to open each .sql upgrade file required, and run it within SQL Management Studio against your database.
For example, if you are presently running v1.3001, and you wish to upgrade to the latest version, you would start with:
UpdateSQL_1.3000_To_1.3003.sql
...and continue by applying each subsequent update file in turn up to the latest.
If in doubt, it is better to run the .sql scripts from a couple of versions earlier than to risk missing out a script. These may produce some errors but won't do any damage and will ensure you have the database changes you require.
Generally the scripts will show a number of records updated and/or a notification that the script ran successfully. But you may see the odd error; in general these don't cause problems and can be ignored as they're normally because some of the things that the script does have already been completed (perhaps by an earlier script).
3. Web.config
Once you have the database upgraded, you need to plumb it into your new web. You will need to set the database connection to the new database, and also ensure that you uncomment the globalization tag - i.e. find this:
<!--<globalization resourceProviderFactoryType="SqlResourceProviderFactory" culture="auto" uiCulture="auto" enableClientBasedCulture="true"/>-->
And change it to:
<globalization resourceProviderFactoryType="SqlResourceProviderFactory" culture="auto" uiCulture="auto" enableClientBasedCulture="true"/>
Finally, you need to copy in the hashsalt value from your old web.config. The tag is near the top of the file:
<add key="HashSalt" value="PutSomeRandomTextHere"/>
4. Further configuration
You should be able to login to the new dev site if you go to /admin/ now. Once inside, you should go to the config settings and ensure you change the webshopURL and webshopfolder settings to your new dev site values. Also, go to the languages/email section and ensure the skin is set to the Kartris default skin for now, as you don't yet have a custom skin in this dev site.
You should now be able to view the front end.
5. Product images
You should be able to simply copy the Products and Categories images folders from your old web to the new one. Similarly, any file downloads in the Uploads folder.
6. Payment gateways
Payment gateway settings are stored in the various config files within the various payment gateway plugin folders. However, we don't recommend copying these into the new web because your new Kartris version will have the latest plugins and the config files from older versions may be missing required settings. Instead, we recommend manually copying over settings from the back end of your old site.
7. Skins
If you are upgrading from a Kartris v2.0 or above, your existing skin should work fine with the latest version. You can just copy the files into your Skins folder and then choose the skin from the back end. There may be minor CSS tweaks required, but it should essentially work. If your skin is from a version before v2.5, it won't be responsive.
If your skin is from an older version of Kartris, it can be tweaked to work with the latest version, but it is probably far better to create a new skin to benefit from the responsive interface (mobile and table friendly).
8. License
If you have purchased a commercial license for Kartris in the past, you can put this in the root of the new web. We no longer put any limit on upgrade periods with licenses, so you can use an old commercial license with Kartris v2.0 and above, even if the upgrade period within it has passed.