Windchill Fundamentals > PDM Essentials and Global Product Development Package 1 > Windchill PDM Essentials > Moving Forward: Ongoing Windchill Administration > System Administrative Tasks > Updating, Upgrading, and Moving Up > Upgrading to a New Release of Windchill PDM Essentials
  
Upgrading to a New Release of Windchill PDM Essentials
Windchill PDM Essentials can be upgraded to a newer major release. This upgrade process is performed the same as upgrading Windchill PDMLink. For information about supported upgrade source and target releases, refer to the PTC Windchill Supported Upgrade Paths matrix.
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PTC recommends that you always use a test (pre-production) system to ensure that your Windchill products are operating as expected before deploying them in a production environment. This allows you to identify any potential issues on the test system without interfering with production system activities. After you have upgraded to the new release on a test system and are satisfied with the results, you are ready to repeat the upgrade process on your production system. Because of the work you did on your test system, upgrading on your production system should take less time.
If you choose to upgrade your production server directly, make sure to back up the server and database or take a snapshot if you deployed in a virtual environment. This enables you to restore your system if there is an issue with the upgrade. Backup details are available as part of the procedures in this section.
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The target Windchill PDM Essentials solution is bundled with SQL Server.
The sections that follow detail the procedures for upgrading to Windchill PDM Essentials 11. Proceed to the section that corresponds to the version of your existing installation:
Upgrading from Windchill PDM Essentials 10.1
Upgrading from Windchill PDM Essentials 10.2