We are pleased to announce that the Drupal 4.5.0 release candidate is available. A list of the major changes can be found in the CHANGELOG file. We fixed most pressing issues during the code freeze, so we'd like you to help polish this release and to help iron out the remaining issues: your comments on the stability, correctness and performance of this release candidate are more than welcome!

You can download the latest release candidate at:

http://www.drupal.org/files/projects/drupal-4.5.0.tar.gz

This package is rebuilt twice a day, so make sure to download a fresh copy every now and then to get the latest bug fixes. No new features or functionality will be added. Only bug fixes, documentation updates and small usability improvements will find their way into the release candidate and thus into the final Drupal 4.5.0 release. When Drupal 4.5.0 is released, upgrading from the release candidates to the final version should be a breeze.

Installation and upgrading

For instructions on installing or upgrading Drupal, please consult the installation documentation and the instructions carried out by the update.php script.

Important upgrade notes:

• For the most trouble free transition, it is recommended that you first upgrade existing installations to Drupal 4.4.
• Several files moved (or got removed) so it is recommended not to copy the new sources over your existing installation. Any left-overs might cause breakage so make a backup and start fresh.
• For the same reason, it is recommended to disable contributed themes and modules before starting the upgrade process. Upgrade them afterwards. Also note that not all contributed themes and modules have been updated to work with Drupal 4.5.
• You have to create two SQL tables manually (users_roles and locales_meta) as per the upgrade script's instructions.

Support and bug reports

For support and bug reports, please consult the Drupal project page. Please use the bug tracker to file and track bug reports.

Developer information

Developers should be aware that custom themes and modules for Drupal 4.4 need to be updated to work with Drupal 4.5.0. If you maintain a theme or module in Drupal's contributions repository, or if you want to contribute to Drupal development, this is the time to update themes and modules. A list of changes with Drupal 4.4 can be found in the Module developer's guide and Theme developer's guide.

The DRUPAL-4-5 CVS branch will be created soon so we can pick up active development on new features. In the meantime all Drupal contributors are encouraged to focus on the pending bugs as well as on documentation.