'eh I can never seem to get VMWare to work properly; it kept crying that my W98 disk had invalid files, eventhough I used 5 differant ones... Then I tried a CentOS install and basically the same thing :/... I wasn't satisfied one bit..

Another option for a virtual environment is Microsoft's Virtual PC. You can grab it for free from Microsoft!

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtualpc/downloads/sp1.mspx

Yes, I just booted a Linux ISO from it.

you mean they did something *right*?

I discovered that I have PHP 4.3.3, but only MySql 3.23.58 on a shared server.

Will it definitely NOT work on MySql 3.23.58?

It MAY work, but it'd be unsupported... theres only one way to see if it'll work though, and that's to test it...

I have requested that a MySql upgrade be done, therefore, I am waiting for a reply before doing anything further.

I received the following response from my service provider:

-----beginning of email-----

Hello,

We can allow you to move to one of the newer servers running the following

mysql Distrib 4.1.18,
PHP 4.3.10 (cgi)

Relocating to the new server involves the following steps:

1. We create the account on the server that matches your requested plan type
2. After receiving the login info - you need to upload the site to the new server and configure it to your liking (users, e-mails, cgi scripts, etc.)
3. After testing the site - you request a DNS change to point your domain(s) to the new IP address.
4. The DNS change takes 6-8 hours and after a safe period of time (1-2 days) we proceed with deletion of your old site.

Please make sure that you understand the steps involved and advise us of your decision.

-----end of email-----

I transferred UBB Classic (cgi files) from one server to another, however, I never transferred UBB Threads (php files) from one server to another, therefore, in preparation for version 7, with transferring these php and other files, how do I also transfer the database itself, or do I need to concern myself about transferring the database?

Daryl, if you're currently running UBB.classic and will be upgrading to .threads, which sounds like the case, then you don't need to worry about the database. The installer will create all of the tables for you. You'd only need to worry about transfering the database if you have actually been running threads and don't want to lose any of the data.

I am running UBB Threads 6.5.2 and do not want to lose any of the data,

Ok, then you'll definitely want to transfer the database. Normally your host will do this for you. Otherwise you'll either need to do this using something like phpmyadmin, or if you have shell access you can use mysqldump. The easiest way would be to get your host to do the transfer. If they won't then we can give more instructions from there.