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3. Upgrading SharePoint Site Definitions from v2 to v3: BUILDING THE UPGRADE TESTING VIRTUAL PC

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Putting together a base Virtual PC for running and "perfecting" the upgrades prior to working on QA or Production.

First off, create the base VPC virtual hard disc which we'll name BD_SPS03_AD_SQL05 in reference to the main items to be installed.

I prefer to install everything including AD on a single VPC server. Much simpler and easier to deal with. In the past it has been challenging to install AD on a VPC with SharePoint Portal Server 2003 (SPS03) (simpler with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (MOSS07) ). So I will now see if installing SPS03 with AD on single box has gotten any simpler with the latest copy of post SP2 SPS03.

Note that I am also installing SPS03 to run against SQL Server 2005. This requires that the SharePoint SP2s be installed. So we install SPS03 up to the point where it wants to create the content database. Then install the SP2s. Then install SQL Sever 2005. And then finally complete the installation of SPS03.

Order of items installed on Virtual PC 2007:

  • Set the size for the VPC to 20000 MBs (20 GBs - you can go smaller, but if you plan to install Visual Studio and gobbs of other developer stuff, 20GBs disappears pretty fast) 
  • Set the VPC to use 1024 of RAM (seems to run fine on a gig)
  • Windows Server 2003 R2 Enterprise Edition (doesn't need to be Enterprise)
  • Set the Administrator password to be the password you want to use for all identities on this VPC
  • Installed Virtual Machine Additions (just to make it easier to work with the VPC)
  • Installed Active Directory and DNS
  • Entered static IP (you have to do this with DNS and AD running on the same box)

IP ADRESS: 10.2.206.42 (can vary if this IP is already in use)
Subnet Mask: 255.255.255.0
Default Gateway: 10.2.206.42
DNS Server: 127.0.0.1

  • Added the Administrator account (the only account that currently exists) to the Administrators for the server itself 
  • Installed IIS (Application Server Role)
  • ASP.NET component of IIS (in Add/Remove Program - Windows Components - IIS)

Saved copy of VPC at this stage for that the next time I need one with Windows 03 and AD...

Continued installing:

  • SharePoint Portal Server 2003 (if it gives you the option, install without a msde or Sql Express - in the msdn media I used these options were greyed out anyway - not sure why)
  • Stop after adding in Service Account (use the Administrator), but before creating Content Database (it won't let you anyway since we haven't installed a database)
  • Install Windows SharePoint Services 2.0 SP2
  • Install SharePoint Portal Server 2003 SP2
  • Install Daylight Savings Time KB924881 - chances are this has been installed on Production, and it changes the database schema and your WSS version number from 6.02.6568 to 6.02.8117 (you need to have the same version number if you need to restore a database to the VPC)
  • Restarted VPC (not absolutely sure I had to)
  • Install SQL Server 2005 (only the database engine, not Analysis Services or Reporting Services etc.)
  • Restarted VPC (again, not sure I absolutely had to)
  • Open SharePoint Central Administration and complete the creation of the configuration database
  • Create your root portal.

Saved another copy of the VPC just in case I want to start again from this point.

NOTE: Note you can use differencing disks to create fewer VPCs. And from this point on in the process I will be doing that. More about this in the Blog 4 of this series.

For info on differencing disks: https://dotnet.org.za/matt/articles/2413.aspx 

NOTE ON SQL EXPRESS: SQL Express is a free and easy install, and for development purposes will work fine, but note that it has a built in 4 GB limit on the size of the database. So if you ultimately plan to restore a production database to test upgrading it, and it is larger than 4GB, then you'll need the Standar Edition.

Installation went beautifully, everything working great including the People Picker, so Active Directory, SQL Server and SharePoint all appear to be playing well together on the single VPC.

Note that I installed everything using the administrator account, and as a matter of house keeping, I give all users on a dev VPC like this the same password. So even if I have 100 test user accounts, they all use exaclty the same password across the board, the same as the administrator, so you only ever have to remember the one password.

I am now going to copy over the updated Site Definitions, Web Parts, CSS and other customizations from the actual SPS03 farm that is to be upgraded. Your SPS03 installation is now complete.

INTERNET CONNECTION GOTCHAS: Connecting to the network and the internet can be critical, particularly if you need to connect to a separate Source Safe server. Set your Networking Adapter to be the NIC on your host machine. Note that if you're running on a laptop and go back and forth between wired and wireless locations (as I do) you'll have to switch this setting each between NICs each time. Also note that if you operate on different networks at different times, you may need to add different DNS servers. For instance I have added the list of DNS servers for my Cable connection at home, and then the DNS servers that are used at my work location.