Upgrading phpBB3 RC1 to phpBB3 stable directly

This morning, I upgraded www.DBAnalyst.com (a leading forum on finance in Bangladesh) from phpBB3 RC1 to phpBB stable 3.0.0.

Well, let me explain a bit. In lst march, the forum was deployed using phpBB2. Then, after short time, it was upgraded to phpBB3 Release Candidate 1(RC1). Before phpBB3 stable version was published, there were 7 more release cadidates (upto RC8)

Now, when I was thinking of upgrading to stable version from RC1, then I found that no direct updating package is available from RC1. I had to upgrade by cahin: Rc1->RC2->..->RC8->Stable 3
That was quite unexpected. I didnt find any direct way for this. So, I made out a way.

Here are the steps (assume table prefix for my deployment (RC1) was phpbb_):

1. Deleted all files of previous forum
3. Downloaded and unzipped new version
3. Installed new version as fresh install (using different table prefix, say phpbb3_)
4. Did not delete the install folder
5. manually edited the config.php file, changed the table prefix to the old one (phpbb_)
6. Executed in web browser http://forum_url/install/database_update.php
7. Using phpMyAdmin, deleted all the tables created for the fresh install (phpbb3_), because we will be using the old tables prefixed phpbb_.

This process is safe. You can try this.