STSADM – Deploy or Upgrade a Solution

STSADM is a powerful utility for administering SharePoint solutions.  The complete reference can be found on Microsoft Technet but the quick syntax is fairly easy and breaks down as follows:

‘deploysolution’ is used the first time a solution is deployed.

     stsadm -o addsolution
     stdadm -o deploysolution

‘upgradesolution’ is used to upgrade an existing solution.

     stsadm -o upgradesolution