Q:

Upgrading Ruby 1.86 to 1.9 by overwriting binaries

I used the one-click installer to install 1.86 a while back.
I wanted to upgrade to 1.9 but since there's no one-click installer for 1.9 I just downloaded the 1.91 binary and overwrote my 1.86 install.
Didn't work so well. I got errors all over the place afterwards.
What's the proper way to upgrade (for a dummy, i.e. me)?
The downloads page  has three options for Windows:
* Ruby 1.8.6 One-Click Installer (md5: 00540689d1039964bc8d844b2b0c7db6) Stable version (recommended)
* Ruby 1.8.7-p72 Binary (md5: d4b04ba03a76dc70120fe96ffa22e5df) Stable version (recommended)
* Ruby 1.9.1-p0 Binary (md5: 921db53c709ce20106610f7d229e24e1) Stable version (recommended)

Normally should it be ok to install 1.86 with the one-click installer and then overwrite the install directory with 1.9? Or should I not have done that?
Is there a better way to do a clean install of 1.9?
I guess I'm just not sure how to install 1.9 without using the 1.86 one-click installer first.

A:

To install, just extract the zip file into a folder of your choice. You will find that it gives you a folder structure roughly equivalent to what you see with in your 1.8 install folder. Scite and the Samples are missing, and of course you won't have your Start menu shortcuts.
I would recommend that you install Ruby 1.9 into a folder separate from your 1.8 install, then change your path statement to point to this new folder.
What is likely happening is that you are pulling in gems or other code that is incompatible with 1.9. A fresh 1.9 install will give you a better idea as to what code is missing and/or needs to be updated to work.
--Bruce

