Restoring Sites from one sharepoint server to another sharepoint server is not as easy as it looks on Windows Server 2008. While we were moving our servers to high end servers and new operating system, we moved sharepoint sites also and faced following issues

1. Our sharepoint site had lot of content, like image files, documents and videos etc, We tried to use the Sharepoint Admin section to take backup of site (stp files), which did not work because of the size limit of backup defined as 100 MB.
2. We were moving from Windows server 2003 to Windows server 2008, and normal installation of Sharepoint was not working on Windows Server 2008.
3. Issues with restoring webparts on new server because domain name changed.

Resolution for issue 1:

Instead of using backup feature from Sharepoint administration, we used the Command Line Backup using stsadm.exe, we used this feature when we want to make a backup copy of an entire site or subsite, or when we want to move an entire site or subsite to another server or location.

e.g.

C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\BIN>stsadm.exe -o backup -url http://server/site -filename D:\ backup.dat -overwrite

We copied this backup file “backup.dat” to new server which had SharePoint installed and ran restore command; we need to create web application manually in MOSS and site will be created automatically according to path by running restore command.

e.g.

C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\BIN>stsadm.exe -o restore -url http://server/site -filename D:\backup.dat

Resolution for issue 2

Installing MOSS 2007 on New Server (Windows Server 2008)

When we ran the MOSS installation on Windows server 2008, we got a windows error with the screen of “Program Compatibility Assistant” which is due to “this program is blocked due to Compatibility issues”

By default Windows 2008 server needs MOSS SP1 (Service Pack 1) to run the installation process smoothly so, we followed below steps to install MOSS 2007 successfully.

1. We copied all the files from ‘Installation CD’ of MOSS 2007 to local directory “MOSS Installation”.

2. Downloaded the Microsoft Windows Service Pack 1 and Microsoft SharePoint Server 2007 Service Pack 1. We need to install Microsoft Windows Service Pack 1 also because Sharepoint has dependency on windows service pack 1.

For Windows Service Pack 1

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=4191A31-A2E9-45E4-B71E-5B0B17108BD2&displaylang=en

For Microsoft SharePoint Server 2007 Service Pack 1

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=AD59175C-AD6A-4027-8C2F-DB25322F791B&displaylang=en

3. We created two folders for keeping extracted files and ran Command prompt to extract files.

For Windows Service Pack 1

C:\wssv3sp1-kb936988-x86-fullfile-en-us.exe /extract:C:\WSSSP1

For Sharepoint Server 2007 Service Pack 1

C:\officeserver2007sp1-kb936984-x86-fullfile-en-us.exe /extract:C:\MOSSSP1

4. We copied all the extracted files (All Sharepoint server 2007 Service Pack 1 extracted file from folder “MOSSSP1” and All Windows Service Pack 1 extracted file from “WSSSP1”) in ‘Update’ folder of MOSS 2007 local installation directory “MOSS Installation”.

5. Now we ran the setup file and It is installed smoothly.

Resolution for issue 3

Customized Web Part Issue

After installation of MOSS 2007 and restored the backup of old SharePoint site on new server, we got error “web part maintenance error” when we tried to add customized webpart on one page.

This error was coming because of different domain names on old server and new server. Administrator of site doesn’t have similar user account on these 2 server.

§We added web part dll in assembly (GAC) folder (C:\WINDOWS\assembly).

Note: We need to check if public key in web config file for this webpart is same as public key of web part in assembly folder (GAC).

§ We changed administrator using SharePoint Central Administrator for restored site as per the new server domain.

§ We deleted webparts from webpart gallery and added again.

§ We added webpart again to the pages which were showing that webpart, we needed as it does not take old reference.

After resolving these three issues, my sharepoint site was running on new server.