Update WordPress to 4.7 “Vaughan”

Version 4.7 of WordPress, named "Vaughan" in honour of legendary jazz vocalist Sarah "Sassy" Vaughan, is available for download or update in your WordPress dashboard. New features in 4.7 help you get your site set up the way you want it, with a notable focus on theme onboarding and the editing experience for non-developer admins.

Why WordPress 4.7

The headline changes in this release:

• Twenty Seventeen — a brand new default theme bringing sites to life with immersive featured images and video headers.
• Edit shortcuts — direct visual entry points into the customiser for elements like menus, widgets and site identity.
• Video headers — beyond static images, the new default theme could play silent looping video at the top of the page.
• Theme starter content — themes could now ship suggested pages, menus and widgets that customers could keep or replace.
• Smoother menu building inside the customiser.
• Custom CSS — finally available in core without a plugin.
• PDF thumbnail previews in the media library.
• Per-user dashboard language settings.
• REST API endpoints for posts, comments, terms, users, meta and settings — the foundation that later powered the block editor and a generation of headless WordPress deployments.

How to Update WordPress to 4.7

Always take a backup of WordPress files and the database before updating to a new version.

Update using wp-admin:

• Step 1 — log in to WordPress admin and click the update icon in the top bar.
• Step 2 — click Update Now.

Wait until the success message confirms WordPress has been updated successfully.

Update from FTP:

• Download the latest WordPress zip or tar.gz file.
• Unpack the archive locally.
• Deactivate plugins from the admin before starting the file swap.
• Delete the old wp-includes and wp-admin directories on the web host via FTP or shell.
• Upload the new wp-includes and wp-admin directories in place of the deleted ones.
• Upload individual files from the new wp-content folder into the existing wp-content, overwriting where prompted. Do not delete the existing wp-content folder or its contents apart from the files being overwritten.
• Upload all loose files from the root of the new release into the existing WordPress root.

Why the REST API Mattered Most

Looking back, the REST API endpoints introduced in 4.7 were the most consequential part of this release — they unlocked the headless and decoupled WordPress patterns that are now standard for content-driven sites. Teams running older builds today should treat this lineage as the baseline before planning any modernisation. For organisations weighing a WordPress modernisation alongside broader CRM and ERP implementation(/services/crm-erp-implementation) or content-platform work, the case studies(/case-studies) on the Redian site collect comparable engagements, and the team is happy to scope a project(/contact).