Hello nice people out there! I need to migrate my stand-alone WSS 3.0 server to a Virtual Server. Does somebody got an idea how to perform this job? In order to perfom the task i have installed a virtual server that i named "newsharepoint"and have WSS 3.0 already running on it. On my phisical WSS 3.0server i have only one webapplication called "sharepoint" with one site collection also called "sharepoint", so if i want to visit a page i use the url: http://sharepoint. The phisical server is called "sharepoint" and the account/user to administrate WSS is also called sharepoint and it is member of the local machine administrators (my WSS 3.0 runs on a member server). I have read about migrating using the Central Administration Console and also migrating with the command line STSADM. In made a backup of the WSS 3.0 Configuration using the backup utility of the Administration Console and tried to restore on the new WSS server: Very often the restore job fails. When the restore jobs works sucessfuly i can not acces the url http://sharepoint (before accessing i shut down the phisical server). I have already tried to restore with a new webapplications, site collections and have created a website... but no result! I am not sure what do i have to choose (new configuration or same configuration). Can someboy point me to the rigth direction?! Thanks in advance!

Hi Evaldo, I have had plenty of issues moving sharepoint around, most issues revolve around permission issues. I am curious, when you access it using http://sharepoint, i assume DNS points to the new box? (if the new box is called "newsharepoint" - otherwise what happens if you type in http://newsharepoint? Georg

I copied a production site this way: stsadm -o backup -url http://myproductionserver -filename myproductionsite.cab create a new empty website with the administrator web on the same server using anotherIP port numberor another server like http://testserver or http://productionserver:12345 (I'm sure you can do that with stsadm too) then i restore the backup file ststadm -o restore -url http://testserver -filename myproductionsite.cab -overwrite Maybe a iisreset may be needed in between the creation or the restore. Works great.

Hi Georg, U r completely right, it is very tricky to have this migration done! When i try to acces using http://sharepoint the page is not found (maybe DNS problems as you supposed). I guess deleting all DNS Records/entries in the DNS Server could help. But untill the virtual server is not running i can not take thatrisky. Curiouly the same happens to the url http://newsharepoint, even with a site created the page is not found. I usualy made a full restore, but today i tried only to restore de webapplication and the database. First tried new configuration and secondly triednew configuration but none of them worked. The restore job still fail but the database is copied. If i search for WSS_Content i can find it. Another tricky issue is that after the restore job in the Central Administration i can see Sharepoint as the sharepoint services database server (take a look at servers in farm). I havenow found out the some services on the farm are disabled after trying to restore. I started the sharepoint services database and i was able to acces http://newsharepointfrom multiple computers on my network. Even if u create another webapplicationnamed sharepoint, it wont be accessable (all the sistes collections starting with http://sharepoint wont open) For example: http://sharepoint:3356 http://sharepoint:3356/newsite As i do not want to start over again... i will try to keep on pushing! Thanks for the reply Georg

Hi Georg, U r completely right, it is very tricky to have this migration done! When i try to acces using http://sharepoint the page is not found (maybe DNS problems as you supposed). I guess deleting all DNS Records/entries in the DNS Server could help. But untill the virtual server is not running i can not take thatrisky. Curiouly the same happens to the url http://newsharepoint, even with a site created the page is not found. I usualy made a full restore, but today i tried only to restore de webapplication and the database. First tried new configuration and secondly triednew configuration but none of them worked. The restore job still fail but the database is copied. If i search for WSS_Content i can find it. Another tricky issue is that after the restore job in the Central Administration i can see Sharepoint as the sharepoint services database server (take a look at servers in farm). I havenow found out the some services on the farm are disabled after trying to restore. I started the sharepoint services database and i was able to acces http://newsharepointfrom multiple computers on my network. Even if u create another webapplicationnamed sharepoint, it wont be accessable (all the sistes collections starting with http://sharepoint wont open) For example: http://sharepoint:3356 http://sharepoint:3356/newsite As i do not want to start over again... i will try to keep on pushing! Thanks for the reply Georg

DAM it Works! The site is online under the url http://newsharepointall the permissions are copied perfectly so far i have seen. All the sites and libraries are complete. This is just amazing!!!! I seems that notifications or email is outgoing email settings are not working, tomorrow i will be sure of whats working and what not. I made a backup of the WSS using Central Administration, I will backup the Virtual PC also and will try to change the url http://newsharepoint to http://sharepoint. I hope it works if not i can try with acces mapping or managed paths. Georg i advise u to perform the task MIKEBRAVO sugested and it should work. C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\BIN>stsadm -o restore -url http:newsharepoint -filename sharepoint.cab -overwrite Do not forget to copy the backup file (sharepoint.cab in my case) to the above path/folder.

DAM it Works! The site is online under the url http://newsharepointall the permissions are copied perfectly so far i have seen. All the sites and libraries are complete. This is just amazing!!!! I seems that notifications or email is outgoing email settings are not working, tomorrow i will be sure of whats working and what not. I made a backup of the WSS using Central Administration, I will backup the Virtual PC also and will try to change the url http://newsharepoint to http://sharepoint. I hope it works if not i can try with acces mapping or managed paths. Georg i advise u to perform the task MIKEBRAVO sugested and it should work. C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\BIN>stsadm -o restore -url http:newsharepoint -filename sharepoint.cab -overwrite Do not forget to copy the backup file (sharepoint.cab in my case) to the above path/folder.

Evaldo, After migrating the Sharepoint site to another server and setting up the mail server, all my notifications still contain a link to the old server. Did you experience this problem? Thanks, CLin

Evaldo, After migrating the Sharepoint site to another server and setting up the mail server, all my notifications still contain a link to the old server. Did you experience this problem? Thanks, CLin

hi Evaldo, i am having simmilar kindof problem, in my case i have a sharepoint site developed in MOSS 2007 named inspire where we have a windows credential. now i have to setup another server for the same site with MOSS2007. the backup of the site has been taken as inspirebackup.bak now when i am typing the command given above it is showing stsadm is not recognised internal or external command. so please help me as i am new to this and dont know more about share point so how shall i set up the new server. i have MOSS 2007,Visual studio 2005,SQL srever 2005. installed on the new aswell as the existing server. the server is using windows 2003.

hi Evaldo, i am having simmilar kindof problem, in my case i have a sharepoint site developed in MOSS 2007 named inspire where we have a windows credential. now i have to setup another server for the same site with MOSS2007. the backup of the site has been taken as inspirebackup.bak now when i am typing the command given above it is showing stsadm is not recognised internal or external command. so please help me as i am new to this and dont know more about share point so how shall i set up the new server. i have MOSS 2007,Visual studio 2005,SQL srever 2005. installed on the new aswell as the existing server. the server is using windows 2003.