A friend recently asked how to upgrade his Joomla with an updated patched tar.gz file from the Joomla site. He was using cPanel at his hosting company. I figured if he wasn’t this might benefit others as well.

Identify Joomla Version Currently Installed:

1. Log into your Joomla CMS site (via the admin)
2. On the top right hand corner it will tell you the version number. (Make note of this)

Download Current Joomla Patch File:

1. Go to Jooma.org
2. Then click the link that says (Download other Joomla 1.5.x packages »)
3. Find the patch that shows the version you have that updates to the current version (for example: Joomla_1.5.11_to_1.5.14-Stable-Patch_Package.tar.gz)
4. Download the file

Backup Current Joomla Install

1. Log in to your websites cPanel interface
2. Click the “File Manager” icon
3. Navigate to the folder above where Joomla is installed
4. Check the box for the folder (which contains all the files for Joomla)
5. Click the Compress button
6. Select tar.gz (make note of the destination folder)
7. Click Compress
After a minute or so you will now have a compressed copy of your joomlas install folder.

Install Updated Joomla Patch File

1. Open up your FTP client
2. Log in to your website
3. Navigate to the the folder where Joomla is actually installed
4. Upload the patched Joomla installer into the folder
5. Open your cPanel window
6. Go back to the “File Manager”
7. Navigate to the patched Joomla installer you uploaded via FTP, and check the box next to it.
8. Click extract
9. After a few seconds the files should be extracted

Lastly, login to your Joomla admin, refresh the page and the version number should no be updated.