4. Upgrading SharePoint Site Definitions from v2 to v3: RUNNING PRESCAN

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Before starting to install MOSS on the vpc, add a Differencing Disk - that will be referred to as the DD1_MOSSGradualUpgrade and begin the MOSS07 install.

This way all of the changes made during the MOSS install will be on the DD1_MOSSGradualUpgrade. We'll come back later and create a second Differencing Disk - the DD1_MOSSSideBySideUpgrade Disk for running the database upgrade.

To install MOSS:

  • Install .Net Framework 3.0 Redistributable
  • Run the MOSS07 Installer
  • Select the first Upgrade option - Gradual Upgrade
  • When it completes, you'll be prompted for launching the Configuration Wizard. Don't run the Configuration Wizard, it will just fail. You need to run Prescan first. You can close out of the installation.

Before running Prescan, shut down the VPC and create a second Differencing Disk called the DD2_TestPortalsToUpgrade. Make DD1_MOSSGradualUpgrade the parent disk and set it to read only, and then create a new vmc file that points at the DD2_TestPortalsToUpgrade disk, and restart the VPC using that file.

Now either create or restore your test portals on the SPS03 environment using the the custom site definitions that you want to upgrade. You may want to start by doing a full blown restore of your production environment - maybe you'll get lucky and the whole thing will just work - but note that running the upgrade will take hours depending on the size of these databases. If you know your installation will be troublesome, then you may want to manually create one SPS03 portal for each individual site definition. That way you can find out which Site Definitions have problems and remediate each individually.

Shut down once more and add one more Differencing Disk - the DD3_RunPortalUpgrades Disk. The parent of this disk will be the DD2_TestPortalsToUpgrade and set that disk to read only, and again you'll need a new vmc file that starts the VPC using the new disk. This last disk is so that you can rerun the upgrades multiple times while making changes to your upgrade files such as the Upgrade Definition file, and the upgraded MOSS Site Definitions.

NOTE: We now have the following hierarchy of Virtual Hard Disks:

  1. BD1_SPS03_AD_SQL05
  2. BD2_SqlData (optional second base disk for holding restored Sql databases)
  3. DD1_MOSSGradualUpgrade
  4. DD2_TestPortalsToUpgrade
  5. DD3_RunPortalUpgrades

Boot up the VPC from this new Differencing Disk and:

  • Run Prescan.exe it was installed in C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\BIN. Use either:

  • SPS 2003: prescan.exe /c preupgradescanconfig.xml /all

  • WSS 2.0: prescan.exe /all

Note that the Preupgradescanconfig.xml file needs to be referenced if you are upgrading SPS03. It contains the ids for the SPS out-of-the-box site definitions - otherwise Prescan will list these as custom site definitions that can't be found. 

Prescan needs to complete successfully, or you'll not be able to configure MOSS.  Go through the log file to determine what went wrong. Here are links to information on the errors:

https://blogs.technet.com/wbaer/archive/2006/12/22/prescan-errors-what-they-mean.aspx

https://support.microsoft.com/kb/937291 

https://blogs.msdn.com/joelo/archive/2006/06/23/644954.aspx

Note that even after you go through the Configuration Wizard, if you add new portals or team sites before Upgrading a Site Collection, then you'll need to run Prescan again.

  • Once you get the "Operation completed successfully" message from Prescan, you can launch the "SharePoint Product and Technologies Configuration Wizard" which is in All Programs --> Microsoft Office Server.
  • Select "No, I want to create a new server farm"
  • The name of your Sql Database Server should be the same as the name of the VPC Server
  • Click Next > Next

The Configuration Wizard will create the configuration database and add everything needed to get the "3.0 Central Administration Site" up and running. No sites will be converted, no content databases will be created. Your SPS03 sites will still run. And the v2 "SharePoint Central Administration" site is also still functional (not sure if it is completely functional).

  • When the configuration wizard completes, open the "3.0 Central Administration" site and you'll see the Administrator Tasks list. First thing to do is assign all services to the VPC server. Select "Single Server or Web Server for small server farms"
  • You'll have to start the Excel Calculation Service and the search service, although both will hurt the performance of your VPC. Hopefully we can turn them off later... Set it to index daily (if for some reason it gets left on, you don't want it indexing every 5 minutes on a dev box)
  • I did not turn on Shared Services...

Now finally we're ready to create the v3 Site Definitions that correspond to the custom v2 Site Definitions (you could have done this before running Prescan - anytime after Installing MOSS so that the "web server extensions\12" sub-folders are in place).