Yesterday, WordPress 3.2 has been released. The focus of this release is to make WordPress faster and lighter, with a new dashboard design and a new default Twenty Eleven theme that fully supports HTML5, among other improvements.

When you can, download and update to the latest version of WordPress 3.2, or you can automatically update via your WordPress admin panel. I personally prefer to do the update manually because the automatic update always fails for me.

Major Highlights

1. Refreshed Administrative User Interface.
2. New Default Twenty Eleven Theme: Uses the latest Theme Features.
3. Full Screen Editor: Distraction free writing experience.
4. Extended Admin Bar: More useful links to control the site.
5. New Minimum Requirements:
   • PHP 5.2.4 or greater.
   • MySQL 5.0.15 or greater.
6. Enhanced Browser Compatibility:
   • Drop Internet Explorer 6 support (IE6 is no Longer supported).
   • Notify users of out-of-date browser.
7. WordPress is Faster and Lighter:
   • Faster page loads.
   • Faster Upgrades: The update system now support incremental upgrades.
   • And many other improvements and tweaks.

Before you do the Update to 3.2

Make sure that you meet the Minimum Requirements AND it is always wiser and safer to do a Complete Backup, in case something goes wrong.

After the Update

Test your Website to make sure that everything, including all your plugins, are working normally.

References

1. WordPress 3.2
2. IE6 Countdown
3. PHP
4. MySQL