Upgrade from TeX Live 2011 to 2012

We do not provide a dedicated upgrade script. The instructions here will definitely not work for any previous year. This procedure is not bullet-proof, or especially recommended; consider it provided as-is, to be used at your own risk.

If you have any doubts, please do a new installation instead of blindly proceeding here.

Unix

1. Find the parent directory of the current installation: /usr/local/texlive by default.

2. Copy the whole directory 2011 to 2012, preserving symbolic links; for example:
   cp -a 2011 2012
   If you don't understand this, stop here and do a regular installation.

3. To save some space, you can exclude tlpkg/backups/* or remove them from the 2012/ directory afterwards. (Theoretically, you could rename 2011 to 2012, but we very strongly advise against this, since you may lose your existing installation with no good way back.)

4. If you installed symlinks in system directories (via the installer option or tlmgr path add), remove them now with tlmgr path remove.

5. If needed, adjust your PATH in your startup files to point to .../2012/bin/platform instead of .../2011/....

6. Log out and log in, and confirm that your PATH now has the 2012 directory.

7. cd to your top-level 2012 directory.

8. Remove the updmap.cfg file in TEXMFSYSCONFIG that was copied over, which is no longer needed or desirable:
   rm `kpsewhich -var-value TEXMFSYSCONFIG`/web2c/updmap.cfg
   mktexlsr `kpsewhich -var-value TEXMFSYSCONFIG`
   (This is the only step that was not present for the 2010-to-2011 upgrade. All else is the same.)

9. Download the latest update-tlmgr-latest.sh and run it like this:
   sh update-tlmgr-latest.sh -- --upgrade
   (The extra options prevent the upgrade from happening unintentionally.)

10. If you don't use the default repository (that is, the automatic CTAN redirection), run:
    tlmgr option repository yourrepo

11. Run (with patience):
    tlmgr update --self --all

12. If you want symlinks in system directories, run tlmgr path add.

Windows

There is no comparable upgrade procedure for Windows. Doing a normal new installation is the only way.