I installed a fresh latest version of coppermine 1.4.12. The "users" table did not have the field "favpics". But I'm seeing a field of "favpics" in another server with an older version of Coppermine. Did they drop "favpic" column in the newer version? Or did the older version have some mods or plugins installed that I am not aware of?
What's "older version" for you? If you refer to cpg1.3.x, then yes: older versions (cpg1.3.5 and older) didn't store the favorites in the database, but in a cookie on the client. No reason to be alarmed. It's an additional feature. Running update.php fill take care of any database differences when upgrading. For fresh installs, you don't have to worry at all.