Upgrading VPOP3 is usually a straightforward process. Download VPOP3 from our web site and back up your current installation just in case something goes wrong. Then simply run the installer that you downloaded and install it over the top of your existing VPOP3. All your settings and mail will be preserved.
Please note that VPOP3 version 7.2 and later require Windows Vista/2008 or later, and VPOP3 version 5 and later requires Windows XP/2003 or later. Earlier versions of Windows are no longer supported
Note that if you are upgrading the Major version from prior to v5 (eg 1.x-4.x to 5.x) then you will need a new licence key.
If you are upgrading several versions in one go (eg 1.3 to 5.0) then you can still do this in one step, you don't need to install the intermediate versions.
If you are unsure how to proceed with the upgrade, then we can do it for you, by remotely accessing your computer over the Internet. This is currently chargeable at £30 + VAT. See our Support page for details.
Note that we recommend performing the upgrade during UK office hours, so if you have a problem, you can contact us on 01484 855800. We strongly recommend that if you have a problem during the upgrade, you contact us as a first step because a failed attempt to resolve the problem yourself will often make it much harder to fix. Support issues relating to problems during the upgrade procedure are not chargeable (but doing the full upgrade for you, or help with any reconfiguration afterwards will be chargeable).
If you can not do the upgrade during UK office hours, but will need help, you can usually pre-arrange to have out-of-hours help, however, this will always be chargeable , even if you have a support contract. Contact us for more information or to arrange this. See https://www.pscs.co.uk/helpdesk/purchase.php for current prices.
If you use our VPOP3 server hosting service, we will arrange with you a suitable time to do the upgrade for you (out of hours upgrades are included with this service).
Note that upgrading version 3 or 4 to version 5 involves an upgrade of the PostgreSQL database engine (versions 3 and 4 used PostgreSQL 8.3, version 5 uses PostgreSQL 9.1). An upgrade of PostgreSQL involves backing up the database data, then upgrading the database engine, then restoring the database data. This is all done for you by the installation software, however, if you have a lot of data, this can take a long time (e.g. an hour or more)
Because of the database upgrade, we strongly recommend that you do a database backup before running the installer to perform the upgrade.
We recommend having lots of disk space on the VPOP3 computer. Disk space is not expensive nowadays (unless you are using fast SAS drives).
By default VPOP3 version 5 does a full backup of its data daily, and on a weekly rotation. Versions 3 and 4 only did a partial backup, and earlier versions didn't backup at all. This means that the backup data may use up a considerable amount of disk space (eg if your database is about 10GB, the backups may take up about 28GB (they are compressed, so each day's backup may be about 4GB)). You can move the backups to another drive if you wish.
Also, VPOP3 has a 'recycle bin' facility which keeps deleted messages for a few days, and it also stores more other data than previous versions.
As a rough guess, if you are using version 3 or 4, find the size of the VPOP3\_messages folder (and sub folders), multiply that by 3 or 4, and that will be the minimum amount of extra free space you should have over what you are already using (if you are keeping backups in the default location)
If you are using version 1 or 2, find the size of the whole VPOP3 directory, multiply that by 4 or 5, and that will be the minimum amount of extra free disk space you should have.
If you move the backups to a different location, then you will need less extra space in the VPOP3 directory.
You should not downgrade from one version of VPOP3 to an earlier one without doing a fresh install, or a recover from a backup of the earlier version. Old versions of VPOP3 are not designed to be able to understand the data & configuration of the later versions.
If you have version 4, install version 5, then install version 4 again (without recovering your backup of v4) then if you install version 5 in the future, it will see that it has already upgraded the settings/data from version 4, so you may have database inconsistencies and lose any configuration changes since you previously upgraded to version 5. PSCS technical support should be able to resolve any database inconsistency problems, but this may be chargeable.