A fair few people are still finding out the hard way that automatically upgrading WordPress via the control panel will overwrite the two default themes. This post is a warning about it and how to avoid it…
Automatically updating WordPress with a single click from the admin panel is perhaps one of the best features added in WordPress 2.7.x but over the past few months more and more blog owners have discovered that it will replace the two default theme folders and files. That means you will lose any customisations you made have to the default theme – in some cases the theme in its entirety. Of course, should have made a backup of all your files and database tables before hand so all is not lost.
Stopping it happening again
The easiest way to stop this behaviour is to move your theme out of the default folder. This requires 3 steps.
Step 1. Rename the default folder in your themes directory. Anything other than “default” or “classic” will do.
Step 2. Open the style.css file of your theme and change the Theme Name at the top of the file.
Step 3. You may (or may not) have to activate the theme again from your admin panel > Appearance > Themes.
Once you’ve done this you can use the automatic upgrade feature without fear of losing your style – of course, this doesn’t mean you should stop making backups!
[...] Those WILL get overwritten. The best way to guard this from happening is to rename your theme. You can follow the simple instructions here. As long as you aren’t using the default theme, though, your theme will NEVER be touched in an [...]
No way that any WordPress upgrade should replace any content in the Theme folder at all……that is upgrading a theme not WP. Its illogical…however the caveat about backup is certainly in order.