If you had a wallet.dat that was never updated to the new format, and wanted to move to the 25.0 version, does it require any special steps or anything?
The last version I used was around 23.0. I haven't updated since then. I reckon at some point there was some sort of an update on the wallet format that was performed automatically and you didn't have to do anything, not sure if around 0.15 era when segwit was introduced, so im assuming that was applied on the wallet file, but now with the descriptors thing, I've seen some people discussing doing some additional steps. Im old fashioned and I haven't even locked at what the ordinals thing are yet. I use legacy addresses, but had to update because some people request bech32 addresses. As far as I can use Coin Control and generate legacy and bech32 addresses, I would be ok, but im assuming it's best to update for security reasons as bugs get updated. I just don't want to screw up an old wallet in the process. Of course I have backups before any of this is done, but I would like to know if any additional steps are required and why.
If it is a non-HD wallet, upgrade it with -upgradewallet (introduced in 0.17+, I believe).
Then use -migratewallet in 0.25 to upgrade to the descriptor wallet.
So could someone confirm that this is all one has to do? I would prefer to avoid mistake here. Im going to keep using the old wallet for as long as possible until I know exactly what im doing. I've never had any problems, and I make backups all the time, so the lack of HD was never an issue (because of the limit o addresses being saved thing). Im also not going to be using any features beside simple transactions.
And I do not want to move any funds, so sending tx's to myself in other addresses isn't an option.