[1] WordPress 2.2.1, the latest version of one of the most popular blogging tools, has been released to the public.

The new release, which comes just over a month since the release of WordPress 2.2, brings mostly tweaks to the “2.2 series,” as Ryan [2] Boren points out in the [1] official announcement on the [3] WordPress site.

Boren notes in the official announcement, WordPress 2.2.1 was supposed to be only a spit-shine to WordPress 2.2. Some of the fixes from the predecessor include:

• Atom feed validation fixes ([4] #4274, [5] #4307, [6] #4381, [7] #4382)
• XML-RPC fixes ([8] #4314, [9] #4329, [10] #4315, [11] #4469)
• Widget backward compatibility fixes ([12] #4275)
• Widget layout fixes for IE7 ([13] #4264, [14] #4268)
• Page and Text Widget improvements ([15] #4302, [16] #4259)

If you’re interested in checking out the complete bugs-fixed list, visit [17] WP 2.2.1 bugs-closed TRAC page.

Security issues addressed

It seems WordPress 2.2.1, despite being a buff-and-shine release, also is addressing a few security issues that make the upgrade to the latest version a mandatory, rather than optional, upgrade, at least for security’s sake.

According to Boren’s announcement, WordPress 2.2.1 addresses the vulnerabilities, listed below, but discussed in greater detail at the links provided.

• [18] Remote shell injection in PHPMailer
• [19] Remote SQL injection in XML-RPC
• [20] Unescaped attribute in default theme

Crazy fast upgrades-made-easy

The easiest and fastest of all ways to handle this and any future upgrades is to use [21] Alex Günsche’s [22] Instant Upgrade for WordPress.

I opted to update my primary blog the old-fashioned way: via FTP after deleting specific files and folders. On several other blogs I own and/or manage, I used [22] Instant Upgrade for WordPress. In all cases, [22] Instant Upgrade for WordPress took less than 60 seconds to validate the current install, check all existing files, then download, install, and re-validate the site.

Can you guess how I will be handling all future upgrades? Just in case you haven’t figured it out: I will be using [22] Instant Upgrade for WordPress.