Please read the following knowledge base article:
http://kb.mozillazine.org/index.phtml?title=Thunderbird_:_FAQs_:_Upgrading

Feel free to edit or add suggestions to the instructions if you think they can be improved. Thanks.

(Thank you to Jeroen and powerbook, respectively, for the Linux and Mac OS X upgrading instructions.)

Linux (tar.gz version)

1. Make a temporary backup of your profile(s).
2. Open a shell (terminal) and decide where you want to install the new version. Remove the old thunderbird directory if you want to install over an older version, this does not remove your profile data.
3. Go to the directory you want to install Thunderbird, use the command: cd /path/to
4. Extract the downloaded thunderbird tar.gz file: tar -xzvf /path/to/thunderbird-<version>-i686-linux-gtk2+xft.tar.gz
5. When finished, launch Thunderbird with the command: /path/to/thunderbird/thunderbird
6. Thunderbird should pick up your profile information automatically and be ready to use.

For those interested: The .zip build of Tb 0.9 picked up my profile from Tb 0.6 flawlessly.

Edit: winto, if you want this post gone from here, PM me ; )

#2 and #3 under "Windows (nstaller version) are confusing, as #3 seems to contradict #2: This is a semantic issue. Perhaps #3 should be 2a or just a second paragraph in #2, and be somewhat reworded?

Thanks for the feedback, John. I've revised steps 2 and 3 for Windows. I think it's better but my brain's not working too well right now, so let me know if it could use some further fixin'.

Hey, I currently use TB 0.8 running XP. Do I need to uninstall 0.8 before I install 0.9? If I do that, will I lose all my contacts and old email?

EDraven wrote:

Hey, I currently use TB 0.8 running XP. Do I need to uninstall 0.8 before I install 0.9? If I do that, will I lose all my contacts and old email?

This thread was made for you. But you do have to click on the link in the first post, you know.

I have XP and except for the loss of the send with no subject , timestamp, and
a temporay loss of dictionary search Ihad no problems. The dict. search I installed
once a compatible version for 0.9 came up the other 2 ican live without. I used
them mostly to learn TB's slightly unusal installation proceedures.

wintogreen wrote:

Thanks for the feedback, John. I've revised steps 2 and 3 for Windows. I think it's better but my brain's not working too well right now, so let me know if it could use some further fixin'.

I cannot see the changes, as the sun is not yet up....

That's much better, thanks.

i just upgraded to 0.9, and TB can't connect with any of my (3) mail servers ot any of my (3) news servers. i didn't save my old profiles, but all the settings (e.g. server names, usernames etc.) look fine.

any ideas?

Apologies if this is a dumb question or I have missed reading any info about it but what happens to existing extensions when you upgrade TB to 0.9?

They probably aren't listed in Tools | Extensions, but they might work regardless. It's a matter for the author to update the extension to include newer versions of Tb.

>what happens to existing extensions when you upgrade TB to 0.9?

They will probably be automaticly disabled.

http://update.mozilla.org/ doesn't appear to have been updated with extensions/themes that support 0.9. When 0.8 was released it took a couple of weeks for most of the extensions/themes I use to be updated. An additional complication is some authors might decide to wait for 1.0 before updating.

I just installed 0.9 over 0.8 on XP SP1 and Thunderbird hangs on startup. I've tried rebooting. No luck. Luckily, I made a backup of my profiles. Now what?

Upgraded from 0.8 to 0.9 on Windows 2000 Professional SP4 and seems to work fine, however have 1 issue. When I receive new mails, I get an icon in the task bar next to the time even though I have unchecked the 'Show an alert' when new messages arrives.

Any way to get rid of that icon popping up?