Wordpress migration from dev to production

Hi,

I downloaded the Wordpress source files to my development environment, where I am playing around with new features and adding content.
Now that I have a better comfort level with Wordpress, I'd like to migrate my blog content to my production server through FTP.

I understand I also would have to migrate the database too, since that's where all my content is stored.

Should I go through the installation process on my production server, and then copy the modified databases over to production? Or should I just paste all of my PHP source files from dev into a new folder on my server and assume that things will work (I guess that is kind of a silly question?)

Is there anything I should be aware of when pasting the files in Production and logging into it? My biggest concern is while I am going through the installation again, someone else could be trying to go through the Wordpress files as I am configuring my blog environment for the first time.

I can't change the database names on my server, since it is going through a web hosting company, so perhaps it is better to go through the installation again in production, and then migrate the content from the databases.

Your help is greatly appreciated!

Thanks!