Upgrading Drupal

How to add new input field in the content or node editable area
Example: Presently there are two fields Title and Body in this section, I need to add one or two more fields like description and keywords.

I am playing around with the update options to bring my site to the 4.7 breanch.
So far everything seems to work normal, except the update of the amazon module fails with this error message:

After upgrading from 4.6.2 to 4.7.2, there is no longer a "select all" button or checkbox on the "list" tab of "administer"->"content". Does anyone know how to fix this?

Are there any obvious places to look for the cause of failures in the 4.7 collapsing/expanding area enhancements? I'm working with a legacy custom template setup (that is NOT a simple one), if that helps.

Ajax stuff also doesn't appear to be working properly. The update.php file reported its progress with text messages, not a progress bar. I have not yet enabled free tagging to see if that works or not.

I've just upgraded my mirrored test 4.6 site to 4.7, so I can work on it without breaking the production site.

However, as it's using Private file method, it's still using the the Private files from the production site, and when I attempt to change this in the Test site's settings page, it breaks every audio/image file on the Test site.

(Just to clarify - if I leave the 4.7 Test Site using the original Private files, the images etc are working)

Short version = Unable to upgrade from 4.6.5 to 4.7.2 on CentOS3 with mysql-3.23.58-16 and php-4.3.2-30

Long version =

I made a copy of my site in VMware and have been trying to get it upgraded to 4.7.2 all day with no luck. It's very disappointing to a) have so many problems and b) see so many similar problems in this forum unanswered. Original site is over a year old and works as expected, VMware site copy works fine AFAICT.

Linux centos3 2.4.21-40.EL
httpd-2.0.46-56
mysql-3.23.58-16, mysql-server-3.23.58-16
php-4.3.2-30

My process has been:

1) Untar the new version
# tar xzf /root/drupal-4.7.2.tar.gz

2) Diff the .htaccess file and copy if OK or update if not
# diff drupal-4.6.5/.htaccess drupal-4.7.2/.htaccess
# vi drupal-4.7.2/.htaccess
+++ RewriteBase /portal

3) Diff the settings.php file and copy if OK or update if not
# diff drupal-4.6.5/sites/default/settings.php drupal-4.7.2/sites/default/settings.php
# vi drupal-4.7.2/sites/default/settings.php
+++ $db_url = {fixed stuff};
+++ $base_url = {fixed stuff};

4) Copy the file upload area from old to new
# Sometimes skipped this with no differences
# cp -a drupal-4.6.5/files drupal-4.7.2

5) Verify ownership and fix if necessary
# chown -R root.root drupal-4.7.2
# mkdir -m 2755 drupal-4.7.2/files # if needed, sometimes skipped
# chown -R apache.apache drupal-4.7.2/files # if needed, sometimes skipped