How I migrated from 7.x (Access) to 8.1 (SQL)

I know there's a lot of threads out there on how to migrate from one version to another, but I don't think any 1 works for everyone. So I'm posting this as additional help for people. Also, my forum was heavily customized, so if you're in the same boat, maybe it'll help. On my site, my forum is in /forum. Also, I have just over 13,000 users and about 30-60 active users. I'm really impressed with how well the access version handled everything really... (nice work -b0rg-! )

1. copy your forum database from wwForum.mdb (probably called something else), to wwForum-v8.mdb. We will be working off the copy from here out so your site can stay live during the upgrade.

2. Open the copy (wwForum-v8.mdb) in Access and run Tools > Database Utilites > Compact and Repair Database. This clears out some problems that may have built up over time and prepares it for the upgrade.

2b (optional). I had a couple bad records in my database, so I went through and cleansed it. Remember garbage in > garbage out. And this is a great time to make sure all your data is up to par.

3. Download -b0rg-'s 7.x to 8.x Access Database forum update script. and run it agains wwForum-v8.mdb. This will put in all the new fields and placeholder data. Essentially, you'd be ready for a v8 access forum.

4. Download the wwForum v8.1 SQL version and unzip the forum so all the contents are in /forum2. If you are working on a remote machine, make sure you setup your permissions correctly to allow wbe access to the new folder and it's contents.

5. Open Enterprise Manager on the Server with MSSQL installed. From there, create a new empty database called wwForumv8.

6. Open /forum2/mssql_server_setup.asp and remove all the areas that create the indexes, relationships, and default values. All we want in there are the Create Table parts. If you have modded your old forum DB, make sure you add in any additional fields that you have created to this script. Save this script as /forum2/mssql_server_setup-1st.asp.

7. Open /forum2/database/database_connection.asp and edit it so that it has the valid credentials and is pointing to the correct server and database (wwFoumv8). Save and close

8. Run /forum2/mssql_server_setup-1st.asp to create the table structure in the SQL db.

9. Open Enterprise Manager on the server with your SQL db and run Tools > Data Transformation Services > Import Data

10. Hit next, choose Microsoft Access as your source. Then browse to select your wwForum-v8.mdb. Hit next. Leave the default local sql server and select your database (wwForumV8) at the bottom. Enter in your login credentials and hit next. Leave Copy Tables checked and hit next.

11. For this step, you need to select all of the tables EXCEPT the 7 that I list below. After you select each one, click on the [...] box next to it and make sure Enable Identity is checked and Delete existing rows is selected.
    Tables NOT to select:
    - Group
    - Author
    - BuddyList
    - EmailNotify
    - PMMessage
    - GuestName
    - Thread

12. Click next, then check Run Immediatly and click next and then click finish. It will begin importing all the tables and data from your Access DB to the SQL one. Once those have been completed you can begin to import the other tables. Only import them 1 at a time and in that order (Group, Author, BuddyList, EmailNotify, PMMessage, GuestName, and then Thread). It may be because I messed with my original tables, but I had to edit the PMMessage table to allow NULLs in the Description field. Worth for you to check it out anyway...

13. Once all your data and tables have been imported successfully, open the mssql_server_setup.asp script again. This time remove everything except the Creating Indexs and Creating Relationships parts. Then save it as mssql_server_setup-2nd.asp and then run it. (This is the fix for that "Invalid Data Lock Type error that people get)

14. Now log in as the administrator to /forum2/admin/ and adjust your permissions to match that of your old forum. They get reset in the upgrade, and there's no way around it.

Now your forum is ready to go under /forum2. If you need to replace the old forum (ie, make /forum2 /forum) then you may need to do these additional steps:

15. copy over your /forum/avatars and /forum/uploads directories to /forum2. This is so you can keep all paths to avatars and uploaded files.

16. If you used a custom skin, you'll want to copy your /forum/forum-images to /forum2 and then manually edit the old CSS file and the new one. They work a little different now.

17. For the final step, rename /forum to /forum-old and rename /forum2 to /forum. This will essentially move your new one into place, so all other scripts and links pointing to /forum will get the new one.

That's it for me. If you can think of anything that I missed, please post it below. This is the result of about a week of trying out all different types of methods that I've read here on the forums, so thank you to everyone that's been helping out, and especially to -b0rg- for making such an amazing forum!

. necronom .

Hi