I realize this might not be the right forum for this question, so please forgive me. My issue is as follows: We have two identical environments (production and Test) running windows 2003 and WSS V3.0. I successfully backup up production (using SharePoint 3.0 Central Administration). I want to restore the backup package into my test environment. The issue I am having (no errors so far because I haven't started yet) is how do I make sure that the test environment keeps its current configuration (i.e. same databse name, same sql server, same web application URL). The restore steps offer only two option: New configuration: Not sure, but this would probably tell me that the DB objects I am trying to create already exist, and it doesn't give me an option to overwrite those objects.Same configuration: This would restore production, and that is not what I want In other words, I want the content and administartion configuration from my production environment to propagate into the test environment. Do I have to delete something to make that happen?Do I have to change something in the backup xml file? Help!! Thank you

Hi Naji. Like you said, wrong foum, this is for 2010, but here we go. I would say that you simply can't do it that way. If you want identical configurations, then using a script to setup production and the same but modified script to setup test. Once you have production up and running, I could not say that there is any good way to get the configuration from prod and 'apply' it to test. Perhaps there is something at codeplex that can be used, but otherwise, I would go with only replicating the content using export/import at this stage. Good luck. RegardsThomas Balkesthl - Technical Specialist - SharePoint - http://blog.blksthl.com Download the SharePoint Branding Project here

Even scripting this might be a challenge as Powershell isnt terribly workable with WSS 3. As Thomas has said an exact replication might be very hard, as this version of the product doesnt allow for a configuration only back-up. I wouldnt have a clue on configuration propogation between two farms but between a test farm and a production farm that would be a large risk. For content, export/import will work for site level, site collections will work for back-up and restore or you could look at a content database re-attach for a holistic migration. Content publishing might also be possible but Ive not explored that previously.Steven Andrews | SharePoint Professional | http://www.twitter.com/backpackerd00d | https://baron72.wordpress.com/