Proper way to upgrade MAMP and keep current settings

Question

I've upgraded MAMP on my Mac a few times now and it's easy enough to backup and restore my htdocs folder to restore my web documents but I'm unsure of the best way to do the same thing for all of my other customizations to MAMP.

Should I overwrite MAMP's db folder with the db folder from my last MAMP install or should I keep the db folder from a new install intact and copy over only the folders containing the .frm files of my databases and tables. I'm unclear if updates made to MYSQL by MAMP require some of the default files in MAMP's db folder.

Should I replace MAMP's php.ini file with my previously updated ini file or will this affect upgrades made by MAMP?

What is the best way to keep all of the PEAR packages I've installed through MAMP when I upgrade?

Answer 1

This is something I have just been through. I found this blog post by Ben Read really helpful: http://www.darkbreedmedia.co.uk/blog/updating-mamp-installation

Basically, the idea is to make a copy of your MAMP folder, install the new version. Then copy your conf,db & htdocs folders from the old to the new directories.

You may need to recreate any symbolic links you had created (i.e. to sub directories in htdocs)

Lance