How to Update Drupal 7 Website Core to Latest Update (Minor Version)

This note describes how to upgrade Drupal 7 core to the latest update (minor version): 7.x to 7.y. See references to understand different types of upgrade. 

Steps are:

1. Take the backup of the website

   1. create a zip file of the website folder in cpanel

   2. take backup of the database using backup and migrate module

2. Download latest Drupal 7 core zip file from drupal.org website.

3. Upload the Drupal core to the website folder

4. Extract the Drupal core

5. Delete the contents of the existing folder except for sites, cgi bin and database folder

6. Now copy the files from extracted drupal core to the website folder except sites folder 

   1. sites folder will remain same as old sites folder

7. change the permissions of sites> default> settings.php for editing 

8. change the value of update free access from false to true and save settings.php

9. Now ran websitename/update.php in the browser and follow the steps

10. Once all the steps are done in update.php, navigate to the website and check whether the site is loading properly or not

11. Make sure that .htaccess is present

12. Edit the settings.php and change the update free access from true to false 

13. Login to the website using admin permissions.

14. Take a backup of the database again as we are going to run module updates

15. Navigate to modules in the admin menu bar

    1. Click on 'update' tab on the page opened

    2. Check all the modules displayed on that page for which updates are available

    3. Click 'download these pending updates'

    4. Continue the steps in maintenance mode

16. After modules update, make sure that site is loading properly