The problem

I've always been mystified at the strange instructions for upgrading WordPress -- "update all the files, except for ...". With more recent versions this gets easier because it's possible to move

• wp-config.php
• wp-content (and so wp-content/plugins and wp-content/themes)

out of the main WordPress directory. Thus an upgrade of core WordPress doesn't have a chance to modify the files that shouldn't be modified.

This concept is, however, taking some time to propagate through the plugins.

See:

• http://unlettered.files.wordpress.com/2008/08/wp-plus-subversion.pdf (starting about slide 35)

  That was referenced from the support ticket mentioned in Giving_WordPress_Its_Own_Directory

  See, in particular, the "warnings to early adopters" on slide 98ff

Issues with specific plugins

cforms

Needed to put back the orignial structure temporarily to get the admin screen for the plugin to show up

Needed to set up a symbolic link from <wp-root>/wp-content/plugins/cforms to the actual location to get the other files to work correctly.

See http://www.deliciousdays.com/cforms-forum/troubleshooting/cforms-menu-not-appearing-on-dashboard/page-1/

wp-pluginsused

Version 1.31 didn't work -- see http://forums.lesterchan.net/index.php/topic,2909.0.html

Installed version 1.40 on WP 2.7 and got no output at all. Reverted to v 1.31 with the patch.

wp-postratings v1.31

Here, I needed to change line 33 in wp-postratings.php from

$wp_root = '../../..';

to

$wp_root = $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'].'/wp';

ABSPATH was undefined at that point, so it couldn't be used. Obviously I'm missing something about how the default configuration is communicated to the plugin ...