Developers can sometimes hold back from upgrading their Eclipse installation due to the perceived difficulty of migrating already installed plugins to the new setup.
This process is actually fairly easy, as described below:
[CAVEAT - being able to migrate a plugin from one Eclipse version to another doesnt necessarily mean this plugin will still work with the newer version]
1- Download the latest and greatest version of Eclipse, unpack and install.
2. Create a file called “.eclipseextension” at the root of the old Eclipse installation.
On Windows the file explorer might not let you create a file with this name – the preferred way is then to open up a command prompt,
navigate to the root of the previous install and type “copy con .eclipseexension” to create the file, followed by “CTRL-F6″ to save.
3. Edit this file to the content below:
id=org.eclipse.platform
name=Eclipse Platform
version=3.5.0 — version of the newest Eclipse installation
4. Open the new version of Eclipse, Select Help menu -> Install new software.
5. Click the “Add” button on the right of the “work with” box, and pick the location of
your previous Eclipse install (i.e directory where the .eclipseextension file is located)
6. Unselect “group items by category” on the bottom panel
to see the plugins installed with the previous Eclipse.
7. Select which plugins to re-install.
8. Restart Eclipse.
9. Check that the plugins work correctly(!) in their respective contextual menus, views and perspectives.
If something goes wrong: select Help menu -> Install new software -> work with all available sites,
pick “what’s already installed” on the bottom panel and uninstall the faulty plugins.
