Kudos to you Mr. Sharepoint migrator man (or person), commands in your pocket and you shoot from the hip.  I was working on migrating a Sharpoint Portal Server, version 3.0 to a new server (from a physical box to a VM and I didn’t want to do a full P2V).  This was the last piece of the pie to get migrated off the machine and I’ve been putting it off knowing it would probably be a pain.  It certainly was a pain but then I bumped into this post on Experts Exchange -> Here <- The final piece of the pie was there, the ‘restore’ piece…I couldn’t be happier!

The processes I had done (By the way, this is a 64 bit server, Server 2003 R2, SP2):

  1. Install IIS (default)
  2. Install ASP.NET 2.0 (use command:  C:\WINDOWS\microsoft.net\Framework64\v2.0.50727>aspnet_regiis.exe -i)
  3. Allow ASP.NET 2.0 to ‘run’ in the security profile (IIS Snapin > Your Server > Web Service Extensions > select the ASP.NET 2.x.xwhatever version it is and select ‘Allow’)
  4. Run ‘sharepoint.exe’ <- 64 bit version
  5. Install your ‘application template core’ command (repeat with other apps you’re using, example might be ‘HelpDesk.wsp’, etc:
    1. stsadm -o addsolution -filename <file_path>\ApplicationTemplateCore.wsp
    2. stsadm -o deploysolution -name ApplicationTemplateCore.wsp -allowgacdeployment
  6. On your OLD sharepoint portal server run this command to ‘back it up’:
    1. stsadm -o backup -url http://youroldserver -filename C:\YourFile.bak
    2. stsadm -o restore -url http://yournewserver -filename C:\YourFile.bak

Now:  Victory happy dance!  Thanks to jorge_toriz on Experts Exchange I avoided a TON of headache, anguish, curling up into a ball and crying myself to sleep, etc.  I didn’t even have to reboot!

Total life saver.  Thanks be to you oh great one jorge_toriz…kudos!

* Note:  If you can add to this please post it and I’ll update my post.  I didn’t include every detail of the process but if you can manage these general steps without much hand holding you’re golden

** Note:   I bumped into that post because I couldn’t use the built in Sharepoint Backup and Restore function because it was continually bombing out on the search portion even after deleting the sites, databases, contents, etc it just wouldn’t work.  I was getting this error:  “Object WSS_Search_New Servernamehere(previous name: WSS_Search_OldServernamehere) failed in event OnRestore. For more information, see the error log located in the backup directory.”

*** Note:  One last thing, if stsadm isn’t ‘working’ for you; you need to migrate to “C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\12\BIN>” via the command line.

Let me know if this helps anyone because it sure saved me, I can’t keep saying it enough.  This tip was so great I’d PayPal him a donation for the help!