Moving SharePoint 2007 to Another Server

Man, I’m really starting to hate SharePoint.

It’s cool and all… in a Marquis de Sade sort of way.  But, it can really make you pull your hair out.

Let me just say this:  If you ever want to move a SharePoint installation from an old, slow server to a newer, faster server – you better make sure that the new server is setup exactly the way the old server was.

I didn’t originally set up our first SharePoint server.  I just built the site.  The person who did set it up created the Shared Service Provider in the same web application where the main site itself resided.  This works, of course, but it isn’t really the ideal way to do it.  It is better if the SSP is setup in it’s own application.  But, if you’re going to move an environment already set up that way – you have to set up the new environment exactly the same way.  Otherwise, you’ll be spinning your wheels when you try to move the site.

To move it, you can use the stsadm.exe command:

stsadm.exe -o backup -url http://server_name/ -filename c:\backups\backup.dat

To backup the old server.  Then copy the backup.dat file to the new server and run the restore command with the overwrite option:

stsadm.exe -o restore -url http://new_server_name/ -filename c:\backups\backup.dat -overwrite

That works well enough… but, if you really want to do it right - restore EVERYTHING - you need a 3rd-party tool.  If you don’t know what I mean by EVERYTHING, then don’t sweat it… you’re probably still scratching your head about the word “SharePoint.”  I used DocAve by AvePoint software.  It’s pricey… but, well worth the green.  It’ll do things that you can’t even think about doing with stsadm.

Convert HD-DVD to Blu-Ray

Wired Wiki has a nice little how-to for converting HD-DVD to Blu-Ray format.  Might be something worth looking into if you’re one of the less-than-visionary people who thought Blu-Ray was going to crap out and HD-DVD would be king.

I think Blu-Ray won out over HD-DVD ’cause the name is just soooo much cooler.  JM2C.