Migrate SharePoint - Migrating Across Versions

Overview

When you migrate SharePoint Sites typically you would do a backup and restore operation with STSADM. It’s best to migrate to the same version, but this is not always possible. Here are a few things I have found out while doing migrations.

You can go UP but you can’t go Down:

Most of the time you can go to a later version but never an older version, if you try to go to an older version you will receive an error message something like this:

“Your backup is from a different version of Windows SharePoint Services and cannot be restored to a server running the current version. The backup file should be restored to a server with version ‘12.0.0.6318’ or later. “

Beware the Infrastructure Update:

Trying to go past the Infrastructure Update from a server before it will generate an error message about an index property not being set on the content.

It’s fairly safe to migrate from 12.0.0.4518 up to 12.0.0.6303 and also

From 12.0.0.6318 (Infrastructure update) to 12.0.0.6421 (SP2)

Whenever you go across versions you are taking risks that will hopefully pay off in time savings so Test Your Migrations.