OK...well

beta root folder
most files have
rwxr-x---

working site root
rwxr-xr-x

Jus a thought, is this possibly caused by my ftp client?
I mean other people have installed the 209 beta successfully so...???

I don't know enough about permissions to be able to say, what caused this.

But if you can set all 2.0.9 files and directories (apart from cache, templates_c and uploads, naturally) to rwxr-xr-x on your test server in one go and then set mainfile.php to be read-only, I think it would help.

All good.

Here is a summary in case anyone else has this problem.

Have a 207 claen installation of Xoops.
Uploaded the files from the 209beta patch using ftp on a Mac OS X machine.

The permissions did not get set up right (cause unknown to date)
Changed permissions en masse to

rwxr-xr-x

except for cache, templates_c and uploads

All seems to work fine now.

Will install a few test modules and get back to this thread with news.

Mithrandir
thanks soo much for your time and help.