Windows Sharepoint Services 3.0 to Sharepoint 2010

With each new version of sharepoint that comes out from Microsoft, the opportunity to upgrade the current sharepoint installation presents itself. Do to the fact that Microsoft will only support upgrades for sharepoint for only one generation behind the newest version, it is recommended that Sharepoint be upgraded as each new version comes out. However if you are still running Windows Sharepoint Services 3.0 (WSS3.0) and want to upgrade to 2010 there is a way. Known as the Database attach upgrade this method can facilitate the upgrade to the newest user experience.
To upgrade sharepoint to the latest version using the database attach method, follow the instructions below.

1. Log onto the old SQL Server using SQL Management Studio and put the content database that you wish to upgrade into Read-Only mode. To do this, go to: Start > All Programs > Microsoft SQL Studio 20XX where XX is the year number. Launch SQL Server Management Studio. Type the name of the connection in the connection box and hit Connect. Once you are connected, expand the Databases folder and then right click the appropriate database and select Properties. Once the properties window opens select options from the list on the side. Now scroll down to the bottom of the options and you will see a field called database read only, switch this from false to true.

2. With the properties window of the database still open go to the option files from the list of the left. Scroll over the window until you see the path field, and take note of this location. You will now want to go to this folder and find the database at this location. There will be two files you want to copy. An MDF, which is the actual database and the LDF which is the Log files of the database. Keep in mind you can only copy the databases that were put in read only mode. Other databases that are not in this mode will give an error when attempting to copy them. Once you have copied the files to the new sharepoint directory, using the method described above to determine the installation folder, you can now attach the database to the SQL installation.

3. You will now want to attach the database to the to the new SQL server. To do this, make sure you have the server SQL instance open in SQL Server Management Studio. Ensure SQL Management Studio is running as Administrator. Within the open instance expand the databases section. Now right click databases and select Attach. There will be a window that comes up to facilitate the attachment of the database. Hit the Add button, and then find the folder where the copied database is located and select the database and hit ok.

4. You will now want to create a new web application for the database using central administration. Follow the Sub-Steps below:

In Sharepoint Central Administration, on the left hand side go to application management. From the ribbon at the top select New. Fill in the form to complete the web application as applicable to your situation. Once the web application has be created you can move onto the next step.

5. Now you will need to launch the sharepoint PowerShell from within the Sharepoint menu accessed by the start menu. You will now need to test the SQL content database against the web application.

       Test-spContentDatabase –name “database name” –databaseserver “Server holding the database” –webapplication
      “address of the sharepoint web application”

Once the database returns to the command prompt without errors you can proceed to step 6. If the powershell returns errors then the errors must be resolved before the database will successfully mount to the web application.

6. Mount the content database using the following command, this process will attach the content database to the web application specified and thereby add the documents, links and lists to the sharepoint site.

       Mount-spContentDatabase –name “database name” –databaseserver “Server holding the database” –webapplication
      “address of the sharepoint web application” –upgradeuserexperience

7. Go into Internet Information Services 6.5 and confirm the IP address of the site. Using the address obtained from the IIS site, go into internet explorer and enter the site into the URL you should now be able to access the site. Confirm that the content has transferred over as expected.

You have now completed the Database attach Sharepoint Migration.