Rick,
My forum was hacked last night and the forums table was deleted. That plus the Islamists who did it left their calling card (that's how I know they were Islamists - because they said so. My server management company ( I lease a dedicated server) suggested that I run phpsuexec but cautioned that some php scripts don't work with that running. Do you know whether threads will work with phpsuexec?

Threads will work, Basil. You'll need to be aware that you need to change some permissions on things such as uploads and photo album directories. The permissions checks on the upgrade scripts might not handle phpsuexec properly. I haven't actually read them to confirm this, that's off the top of my head. I also think some of the upload functions chmod the files it uploads. Those can probably, and should probably, be re-examined and have the permissions tightened for phpsuexec.

Basically phpsuexec makes php run more like old skool perl under apache suexec and less like mod_perl. (that was an over simplification and probably misleading!) I am very much in favor of a wrapper to run php this way.

Thanks David. I have it installed now. So far so good!

I think it still worth having Rick weigh in on the permissions checks that the upgrade scripts do, and on whatever permissions change operations that they uploaders do.

Rick gave me some info in a PM that he didn't see any problems except possible problem if I was using Imagmajik. I am using that for images, but so far no issues.

Basil,
I am curious how this works out because my host suggested the same thing.
I was afraid to try it due to the permission change requirements that I read about.

So far I've not run into any problems - so far.