As fretzl said a direct upgrade should generally work. I did upgrade even older versions. But of course no one can give a 100% guarantee.
Quote:Is there a way to do the latest new install and then move albums folder and other necessary folders and files from v1.1.6 and have it working properly and have all commentaries and descriptions intact?
No, as the descriptions etc are of course stored in the database. Current Zenphoto releases provide a tool to export/backup the database (the part belonging to Zenphoto only if you sharing the database with anything else). You would have to do that manually on 1.1.6 using tools like phpmyadmin. (you should do this anyway on upgrades!).
Except that db export you could follow this:
http://www.zenphoto.org/news/how-to-move-my-installation-to-a-new-server-
However you cannot export the 1.1.6 database data and use it with current release directly. Too much changed. If you move you need to first install 1.1.6 first and then upgrade that.