Magento: Upgrading Magento with a full package

  1. Backup your database
  2. Backup all the code you modified yourself, and don’t forget to keep the original installation archive
  3. Take care of saving the media directory that contains all the uploaded product/category images
  4. Create a backup copy of app/etc/local.xml file
  5. Download a new installation archive
  6. Extract and upload all the files it contains to your server
  7. Delete var/cache and var/session directories
  8. Point your browser to any Magento page
  9. Database upgrades should happen automatically
  10. You are done!