When you're looking to upgrade your Arbortext install from one release to another, you want to get all the information you can about the differences between your version and a random other version. And you want to do a test deployment before rolling it out to everyone in your organization.
Generally speaking, if you are upgrading between point releases in the same major version, you can find all the information you need in the release notes. The release notes detail the differences between each point release and the version associated with that set of release notes. For example, the release notes for 5.3 M200 will detail the differences between F000 and M200, M010 and M200, M020 and M200... right up through M190, the most recent previous release to M200.
Now, if you're changing between major versions, you need to consider several data points:
| Major | Minor | Release date | |
| Currently installed version | 5.3 | M050 | 1/31/2009 |
| Desired target version | 5.4 | M080 | 12/17/2010 |
| Latest point release available for major version currently installed | 5.3 | M220 | 2/3/2011 |
| First release for major version of desired target | 5.4 | F000 | 6/4/2009 |
As you can see, there's a lot of overlap in the timeline. All of this information is available in the Product Calendar.
You'll want to fetch the release notes from:
- The desired target version
- The F000 of the target version
- The latest point release of your currently installed version
This way, you should be able to glean the differences between your point release and the next major version. You will also be able to see what changes were made to future point releases in your major version after the next major release came out. And, you'll be able to see what changes were made in the new major point releases after it came out and as both major versions were in development simultaneously.
There are two last dates to get from the Product Calendar. The dates that:
- Maintenance Releases Discontinued
- Standard Support Ends
In the meantime, if you're following our release notes feed, you know that for most releases, we give you the list of SPRs that get fixed for software releases so you can check and see if your bug got fixed. For deep releases, when the release notes span some 200 pages, we give you the highlights and leave the rest an exercise for the reader.