Need some help/advice with a site made with SITEFINITY.

Hi, I am a Networking IT  intern who is helping a local chamber of commerce update and transfer their website from one host to another.  Long story short the site was created by someone else a few years ago. No one has been able to update the templates on the site for a while. I am not sure the version of SF that was used but it is copyrighted 2006 -2008. So I have lots of questions but will submit one at a time.
First issue is trying to update the templates for corrected address. When I try to edit in the SF login I get a standard not found stack error message. Do I need to download the SF software to my PC in order to perform this function? If so is the previous versions still available or can I migrate into the newest SF?
Thanks,
Michael (Mike) Puffenbarger.

I would presume you are using a very old version of Sitefinity. If you post the website people can look at the html and possibly determine what version you have.
To move the site should be as simple as copy all the files from the root directory to your new site. Take a backup and restore of your database and then change the database connection in the web config. But I do say "should" be simple.
Though I would suggest you get a new version of Sitefinity and redo the site.

Talk to a Sitefinity sales rep who can help lead you through options and suggest partners, (like me :-) ) in your area.

You don't need to have SF installed on your machine to log in and change anything.

Hi Darrin the site is   http://www.euclidchamber.com/Home.aspx . I am exploring how to upgrade now. As you can see when going to the site a few things are not working properly. Also the address on the template is wrong as well. I cannot change the templates thru Sitefinity but I think they were made outside of the suite. I am downloading Visual Basics free version see if I can do anything.

Thanks Tim my issue is then how to make changes to a template. do I need to use another editing program? honestly I am not trained in web design. I am trying to use my newly learned skills to help the chamber fix their site. We figured it was more physical than web design but I may be wrong but willing to try and learn a bit. 

So your site is version 3.6.1936.3
Pretty old. Several pages are throwing errors.

You can edit the current. Just install Visual studio, (The free express will be fine) and you can edit those templates, (they have the .master exten)

To migrate to the latest you first need to upgrade to 3.7 SP4 and then do a migration to 5. Overall I would say not a trivial process.
You have lots of options but skipping those to an opinion. (Well my opinion)
I would start from scratch. Go through your current site and decide what you want to keep and what you don't need or no one users. Then append to that what you may like to have.
From this you can then judge what Sitefinity license you need.
Then build the site copying over the information from the current site.

I would recommend you do need someone to lead you else this 'helping out' will be a long learning curve. (I am presuming this is a side job and not your full time job)

Sitefinity is great but in your case you would want someone to get answers from as well as solve particular problems. (Thus a partner. Ask the sitefinity team to recommend one in your area.
I know there is a great one in Auckland, New Zealand. PDR something...  :-)  )

Hopefully I am being helpful.

Hi,

Thank you Darrin for helping Michael.

I just want to add several things. Here is some additional information about migration

1. Both sites that are involved in the migration (Sitefinity 3.7SP4 and 5.x projects)  should be running on IIS.
2. Please follow the steps described in the Migration Guide - article 1 and article 2

When migrating a 3.7 SP4 website to Sitefinity 4.x / 5.x please make sure to review the following article, which shows how a projects needs to be set so it is correctly migrated:

www.sitefinity.com/.../migrating_sitefinity_3_to_4_deep_dive_preparation.aspx

Additionally, you might the following article useful:

http://www.sitefinity.com/blogs/joshmorales/posts/11-11-29/migrating_sitefinity_3_to_4_deep_dive_common_error_messages.aspx

If you want to contact you with a partner, please open a support ticket.

Regards,
Stefani Tacheva
the Telerik team

You are very helpful Darrin Thanks. I figured out how to view the sites html and found the SF version . Ok I also have downloaded Visual studios and can edit templates. Step one is done. Now I will review and work on the rest of your advice. I do appreciate your help.  

Thanks. Stefani I am going to read thru all this now and see how it goes.

I did want to reply Darrin to this " I am presuming this is a side job and not your full time job". I am doing this as my Internship for college. I am working on an associates degree in Network Technologies ( basically network systems ). So this is not a job as of yet. I took this on at first because we thought it was more of a physical problem but now I am learning it is about HTML and web design. As I am interested in a career in IT I felt helping solve this problem would be helpful, at least tis rounding out my  knowledge base.  Unfortunately we are located nowhere near NZ but in Ohio USA.  I don't think this forum is meant for this much chatter so I am done for now.

Hi,

You are welcome. I hope that you will find them helpful.

All the best,
Stefani Tacheva
the Telerik team