Upgrade

BroadHopper · 02-21-2026, 10:07 AM

Just curious as to what it will take to update the forum's OS to the latest version.

webmaster · 02-21-2026, 12:35 PM

I've considered upgrading over the years but it would be a MAJOR undertaking for me and would essentially mean starting from scratch on the entire site.

If I upgraded the vBulletin software a lot of other things would have to be upgraded as well and many of those are no longer maintained. The Photopost, Blogs, Classified and Content Management System, which are all dependent on the old vBulletin version, would no longer work along with many customizations and the 22 plugins I've added in the last 25 years.

The forum runs on vBulletin 3.8 and the current version is 6. There would not be a smooth upgrade path. Of course if I was Google or Microsoft I could throw a team of software engineers at it to upgrade and redesign everything but I'm just one old retired guy trying to keep this site online and simple for me.

Someone I spoke with about this years ago convinced me that "if it's not broke, why fix it?". I liked that approach.

02-21-2026, 10:07 AM	#1
BroadHopper Senior Member Join Date: Oct 2004 Location: Laconia NH Posts: 5,667 Thanks: 3,282 Thanked 1,132 Times in 814 Posts	Upgrade Just curious as to what it will take to update the forum's OS to the latest version. __________________ Someday may never be an actual day.

02-21-2026, 12:35 PM	#2
webmaster Moderator Join Date: Jun 2002 Posts: 2,494 Blog Entries: 1 Thanks: 467 Thanked 4,031 Times in 864 Posts	I've considered upgrading over the years but it would be a MAJOR undertaking for me and would essentially mean starting from scratch on the entire site. If I upgraded the vBulletin software a lot of other things would have to be upgraded as well and many of those are no longer maintained. The Photopost, Blogs, Classified and Content Management System, which are all dependent on the old vBulletin version, would no longer work along with many customizations and the 22 plugins I've added in the last 25 years. The forum runs on vBulletin 3.8 and the current version is 6. There would not be a smooth upgrade path. Of course if I was Google or Microsoft I could throw a team of software engineers at it to upgrade and redesign everything but I'm just one old retired guy trying to keep this site online and simple for me. Someone I spoke with about this years ago convinced me that "if it's not broke, why fix it?". I liked that approach.

The Following 9 Users Say Thank You to webmaster For This Useful Post:
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