CodeIgniter errors after PHP 5.2.6 to 5.4.13 upgrade

[eluser]Rob Rightmyer[/eluser]
We migrated our site to a new server which is running PHP 5.4.13 (previously PHP 5.2.6) and we're using CodeIgniter 1.7.0 for our application. We now see the following error message:

A PHP Error was encountered
Severity: 8192

Message: Assigning the return value of new by reference is deprecated

Filename: libraries/Loader.php

Line Number: 255

What would be the fastest way to get our application back up in the new environment?

[eluser]CroNiX[/eluser]
The newer versions of CI (2+) are made to work for PHP 5.3+. Either upgrade or search the net on how to make the changes to the core yourself by changing all of the "=&" to just "=". There are a few other changes you need to make as well, like removing set_magic_quotes_runtime() and other deprecated functions.