We want to change the status of an order without going thru the process of Shipping and Invoicing. There are instances that Magento will lock the status of an order to pending until the order finishes its shipment.

This hack will activate all the order status on all states. What I mean is the Status dropdown in the Comment History, by choosing the desired status and Submitting the Comment. We can change the status of the order to Complete or Closed or any available status for that matter.

All we have to do is edit the config.xml under the magento_folder\app\code\core\Mage\Sales\etc\.

Then find the <states>code block. That’ll look like:

<states>
<new translate="label">
<label>New</label>
<statuses>
<pending/>
</statuses>
</new>
<processing translate="label">
<label>Processing</label>
<statuses>
<processing/>
</statuses>
</processing>
<complete translate="label">
<label>Complete</label>
<statuses>
<complete/>
</statuses>
</complete>
<closed translate="label">
<label>Closed</label>
<statuses>
<closed/>
</statuses>
</closed>
<canceled translate="label">
<label>Canceled</label>
<statuses>
<canceled/>
</statuses>
</canceled>
<holded translate="label">
<label>On Hold</label>
<statuses>
<holded/>
</statuses>
</holded>
</states>

And change this with the code below:

<states>
<new translate="label">
<label>New</label>
<statuses>
<pending/>
<processing/>
<holded/>
<complete/>
<closed/>
<canceled/>
</statuses>
</new>
<pending translate="label">
<label>Pending</label>
<statuses>
<pending/>
<processing/>
<holded/>
<complete/>
<closed/>
<canceled/>
</statuses>
</pending>
<processing translate="label">
<label>Processing</label>
<statuses>
<pending/>
<processing/>
<holded/>
<complete/>
<closed/>
<canceled/>
</statuses>
</processing>
<complete translate="label">
<label>Complete</label>
<statuses>
<complete/>
<pending/>
<processing/>
<holded/>
<closed/>
<canceled/>
</statuses>
</complete>
<closed translate="label">
<label>Closed</label>
<statuses>
<pending/>
<processing/>
<holded/>
<complete/>
<closed/>
<canceled/>
</statuses>
</closed>
<canceled translate="label">
<label>Canceled</label>
<statuses>
<pending/>
<processing/>
<holded/>
<complete/>
<closed/>
<canceled/>
</statuses>
</canceled>
<holded translate="label">
<label>On Hold</label>
<statuses>
<pending/>
<processing/>
<holded/>
<complete/>
<closed/>
<canceled/>
</statuses>
</holded>
</states>

After that, It is important to refresh your cache.

this hack was taken from Magento Forum’s atlasit