mylifeinaminute.com

Recently, we came across a need to migrate an existing (SharePoint 2007) RTM content database to a new farm, which had SP1 pre-installed.  After taking a full backup of the existing database (through SQL Server), the backup was restored in the new farm.

Note: I should also mention that the database was migrating from SQL Server 2000 to SQL Server 2005.

After resetting the SharePoint servers, browsing to the site in question brought the following error:

Server error: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink?LinkID=96177

At this point, we detached the content database in question (Central Administration » Application Management » Content databases). Once the database was successfully detached from the farm, it was reattached using the following STSADM command:

stsadm -o addcontentdb -url ‹URL› -databasename ‹DBNAME›

Reattaching the content database with the above command completely successfully, and as an added benefit performed an inplace upgrade, bringing the database schema up to SP1.  This might prove to be a helping hand when it comes to migrating to MOSS 2007 SP1 if your wish is to start with a new farm, but retain your original content.

Microsoft has just released the Web Platform Installer (RC1).   What is the Web Platform Installer you ask?  From Microsoft:

“The Web Platform Installer (Web PI) is a simple tool that installs Microsoft’s entire Web Platform, including IIS7, Visual Web Developer 2008 Express Edition, SQL Server 2008 Express Edition and the .NET Framework. Using the Web Platform Installer’s user interface, you can choose to install either specific products or the entire Microsoft Web Platform onto your computer. The Web PI also helps keep your products up to date by always offering the latest additions to the Web Platform.”

The Web PI certainly looks promising as a quick ramp-up when setting up a development environment (or even a one-off server environment).

When cleaning up a number of older databases in a QA/Staging environment (databases dating back to 2003), we managed to delete the default database for the SharePoint database system account. After deleting the database, the user will longer be able to perform actions on the SQL instance (login, view databases, etc.) when logging on through Management Studio.  To fix this error, log on to your SQL server as another administrative user (like the “sa” account), and execute the following:

sp_defaultdb 'SQLSERVER\dbuser', <DEFAULT DB>

Replacing with the new default database name.