How-to: migrate from 3.7 to 4.2

I have a SF 3.7 installation and project. I have not installed any previous versions of SF 4.x

I now installed SF 4.2 on my development machine. I am confused about how to proceed in order to upgrade my existing 3.7 project to 4.2. I don't seem to find any up-to-date information on this subject.

Regards, Mikael

and additional question: the 3.7 project is 3.7 SP1. Do I need to upgrade to 3.7 SP4 first before attempting an upgrade?

Hey Mikael,

First, it might be helpful to checkout the forum dedicated to this subject:

http://www.sitefinity.com/devnet/forums/sitefinity-4-x/migrating-from-3-to-4.aspx

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It's probably ideal to upgrade to 3.7 SP4 before attempting the leap to Sitefinity 4.2.

Regarding the actual migration, there are some instructions embedded in the BETA Migration Tool inside Sitefinity 4.2.  Give those instructions a look and please post questions.

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The entire 3.x -> 4.x migration story could be described as "evolving".  We're interested in working with early adopters, however expect to encounter bumps in the road.  If you're looking for a seamless experience, then I recommend waiting for the official release of the migration tool.  However, if you're willing to help us test, then we welcome your involvement and questions.

Best wishes,

Gabe Sumner
Telerik | Sitefinity CMS

Hey Gabe,

thank you for getting back to me.

Yes I saw the forum dedicated to this subject, but it seemed rather outdated to me, no new information in there regarding the new situation with SF 4.2

What I found awkward is that I first need to create a new SF 4.2 project and open its administration in order to start migrating another existing 3.7 project, I guess this is why I had a hard time getting started. Once I was on the migration page it was easier.

First roadblock then was where to find the files I was supposed to copy, until I found them in the newly created SF 4.2 project.

The next roadblock was when my 3.7 project would not start anymore after I added the web.config section and dlls. It seems that the migration dlls are Net4, whereas my 3.7 project is SF 3.7 SP1 Net3.5.

At this point I decided that it is faster for me to manually recreate the existing site in SF 4.2, rather then convert my 3.7 site to Net4, then to SF 4.2 and then to bugfix everything.

Nevertheless I am excited about working with 4.2 now.

regards, Mikael

Hello Gabe,

I would like to add one thing: I realized, after playing with 4.2 for a while (I hadn't looked at 4.x in detail at all before) that the improvements compared to 3.7 are so wast that I actually don't want to simply upgrade our website, but actually rebuild it from scratch in 4.2, so I can leverage all the new abilities, namely layout und customized widgets.

I ´very much like what I see so far. Thank you.

Regards, Mikael