Hi Larry,

OK, now it’s clear: you are stuck with an older version. Updating within the 1.x branch is not problematic (actually I did it from 1.4.1beta regularily up to 1.7.5) and never lost anything.
If you have modified the scripts (e.g., new BBCodes), template.html, and/or style.css take care about differences (there is software out there doing this for you - like GNU diff).
Essentially start with a back-up (you never know), fire up install.php and that’s it… (‘install.php’ asks whether you want to install a new forum or to update from an earlier version)

Are you in a hurry? - I’ll be off next week…