WordPress versions from 2003 until today
Welcome to “wordpress versions” page of this video tutorial blog, which is absolutely my “favorite” page.
Let me start by saying that this page is actually made for anyone, especially those who have a self-hosted wordpress.org.
If you are currently use wordpress.com blog, you have some limitations which a self-hosted blog owners don’t have, however, you can still try installing wordpress.org offline, which means in your computer.
This way, you will not need any paid webserver, but by using local server. ( I also posted the link how to install in your computer in below paragraph)
I had to type “favorite” because I personally think it is always interesting to see old looks of something.
In this wordpress versions page, I have took some of my times this morning to install some old version of wordpress from the very first version, which was called, “0.71-gold” version, and released on “May 27, 2003” – whew, surprisingly it wasn’t really long time ago, much later than I thought.
I thought it was on around 1999 or something, but I was simply wrong.
There were some issues and problems while installing the very old wordpress, one of them is “internal server error” while installing them, however, I didn’t get into this issue deeply, because I didn’t really install the whole entire version.
I installed version 0.71-gold, 1.0.1-miles, 2.0, 2.5, 2.9, 3.0, and of course, the current 3.3.1 when this page was created.
Something which is noticeably improved be it in terms of performance, capabilities and of course appearance, like color, placement of the tabs, and so on.. (looks is important too!).
Why I Wrote this “WordPress Versions” Page
The idea of writing this page is actually coming from my offline blogs which I have installed locally offline. Some of them were client’s websites which I have ever work with (now not anymore due to time limitation).
Those project websites were actually untouched until a few days ago when I cleaned up my computer hard drive, good habit however I don’t do it often unfortunately plus cleaning and organizing my own computer isn’t one of my favorite tasks.
So when I wanted to delete those offline websites, I have first logged into my dashboard. Each blogs had many different version of WP and the older one was 2.9.2.
WP v.2.9.2 was actually the very first version that I have ever learnt or used. Before, I haven’t touched WordPress, because I was still in confusion between using WP, Joomla and Drupal.
Yes, I was very curious about these 3 types of blogging or CMS software, therefore, I tried Joomla and then Drupal first, and lastly wordpress.
Version 2.9.2 was not very old, but I was just curious about the very first version, which is 0.7 (called, “0.71-gold”), therefore I installed it for fun to experience the old version (hey it was really interesting as I am a fan of this blogging software).
Before we go to screenshots, I would like to post a few quick links in case you also want to experience it yourself.
4 quick links to install wordpress on 3 different Operating Systems;
Install wordpress on Mac
Install wordpress on Windows (even with Windows 7 and Windows 8)
And install wordpress on ubuntu
I have made those video tutorials myself; except the one with ubuntu because I don’t currently use it (I had it once).
Just to be up-to-date, I would like to embed this installation process video of the latest version, which is 3.3 (I installed it in a webserver, related post about it; how much does wordpress.org cost).
The Dashboard looks of WordPress Versions from 2003 until Today
With the curremt version, as most of us know, it is also called, “WordPress Sonny“, which is also made in honor of an American Jazz musician.
Not different with this latest version, older major releases were also made in honor of many jazzers which are loved by WordPress core developers.
Each of them do have names, which I personally think very cool and unique.
So, after setting up blogs offline here are the screenshots of WordPress from the older version to the latest one, as well as the names of these releases.
*The screenshot above is from v. 0.71-gold, released on May 27, 2003, as you can see, the dashboard looked very clean, plain black and white and very simple.
The installation process wasn’t really complicated, but absolutely different than my installation process so far. In the more current versions, I didn’t really need to rename, and then edit wp-config.php, however, this first version was a bit complicated, because firstly, you will not find any “wp-config.php”, but it used “b2config.php” file.
So at first, I was really confused, because I am so used to with wp-admin, wp-content, and wp-includes folder apart of other files. In this 0.71 gold, these files are totally having different names and folders.
*This is from v. 1.0.1-miles, named in honor of an American musician (Jazz) called, ” Miles Davis”. Released on January 3, 2004. The dashboard still looks very clean, and also simple, however, as you probably notice, it has already some colors instead of plain black and white color.
*V. 2.0, released on December 31, 2005, also like “Miles” above, named in honor of an American jazz musician “Duke Ellington”. Apart of huge improvement of performance, files, the dashboard is totally different then previous versions, from black and white, white blue, to all blue (more to all dark blue color) by default.
*V. 2.5, released on March 29, 2008, named in honor of “Michael Brecker”, another American jazz composer and saxophonist. The dashboard looks blue, but more light than v. 2.0.
*V. 2.9, released on December 18, 2009, named in honor of “Carmen McRae”, an America artist, and jazz singer. I didn’t use this version, later on, when the 2.9.2 was released, it was the first version of WP I have ever tried and used to build this blog, which was released in 2010.
The dashboard looks very different, from light blue to dark brown, almost black on the top of admin page.
*V. 3.0, released on June 17, 2010, named in honor of “Thelonious Monk”, an American jazz pianist and composer. The dashboard looks lighter grey then the previous release, and included gradient color for admin top bar.
V. 3.3.1, which the version 3.3 was released on December 12, 2011, named in honor of “Sonny Stitt”, an American jazz saxophonist, and I am sure you know how it looks and how it performs.
The next versions are coming and I am planning to update this page whenever it is necessarry, I mean if there is a newer version.
Some references you might be interested in;
WordPress Versions from oldest to newest download page
WordPress Versions Release dates and Musician names list
After seeing the older wp dashboard back then, share your thoughts!
Hey Kimmi!
How are things? I wanted to ask you opinion on updating to new versions of WordPress. Do you recommend doing this each time a new version is released. Or if we have an older version, say 3.3.1, would we stick with that for a while.
Is updating always necessary.
Thankyou very much for looking at my question.
Hey!
Things are well, but quite busy with kids, thanks for asking.
I personally will take a few days to update after the release, see if some people complains or submit bugs.
I think updating is necessary, don’t forget to backup database and wp-content before hit “update”
Kind regards
Kimi.
This is a very good post Kimi.
In my opinion I would say that wordpress.org is indeed the best CMS solutions. Like you Kimi, I also tried Drupal and Joomla but I find it more difficult to expand the functionality of my blog due to unavailability of modules or plugins. I still find wordpress to be better. All my websites are created with wordpress. 🙂
@Junior – yes updates is very important. Like what Kimi said, just make sure you backup your database before doing the update. This is to make sure that you have a copy if in case the updates failed. – which in most cases, they don’t.
Updates are important because they are improvements from the previous versions. Like security holes, bugs, and other problems encountered on old versions. When you update your wordpress version, you get better blog performance and better security.
Thanks guys..
Talk to you soon…