One of our customers had WSS 3.0, and just decided to upgrade it to MOSS 2007. The installation was successfully finished by their own operational team, and they was waiting for us to migrate the sites and other contents. OK, it's a really average task, but here is the trick: we had to keep the GUID of all documents and list items because of a custom feature. (All documents and list items are identified by GUID in this feature.)
Well, how to start a task like this? - Of course, planning. What we have to migrate: sites, lists, documents, features, custom settings and custom requirements. One of there custom requirements is the GUID-issue: how can we guarantee the proper working after migration?
Ok, let's migrate the database. Copy the content database from WSS to MOSS database server, and let the MOSS to "eat" it. I'll write it in a professional language as well, but here is an other issue: we faced that the operational team installed a Hungarian MOSS, but the WSS is an English one...
No problem, the Language Pack can make a wonder for us: let's install an English Language Pack to the Hungarian MOSS (it's not the first time to do that), and let's start the migration:
- Stop the WSS Services, and detach the WSS_Content database.
- Copy the MDF and LDF files to the new database server (if it's needed).
- Attach the database on the new server.
- If the WSS have to work on, attach back the saved database to the WSS's DB server, and start the WSS services.
- Go to the MOSS Central Administration, and create a new Web Application. Give a custom name to your WebApp's content database, for example WSS_Content_Temp.
- Add the WSS_Content database to the Web Application with this command:
stsadm.exe -o addcontentdb -url http://<server>:<port> -databasename <content database> -databaseserver <DB Server name>
- Now we have a Web Application, which has two content databases: the old WSS_Content with our sites, and the new, empty one: WSS_Content_Temp. Go to the Central Admin > Application Management > Content Databases, and delete the empty WSS_Content_Temp database.
- Install and activate the required features
That's all! We're ready to use the old contents and features on the new MOSS server. We have the original GUIDs, the original Created By and Last Modified By fields for all list items and documents - the full process was transparent for users, except the new URL, and the new features and functions came with MOSS...