Upgrading and Migrating to Office SharePoint Server 2007 : Webcast (10-9-2006)

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Good afternoon my MOSS 2007 aficionados! 

(BTW  MOSS = Microsoft Office SharePoint Server)

Thank you to everyone for attending my web cast on upgrading MOSS 2007.  A special thanks goes out to Kevin Remde and Harold Wong for handling all the questions and there were a lot of them!  So I wanted to get the resources and questions quickly:

Watch the web cast again click here: Upgrading and Migrating to Office SharePoint Server 2007

Here are some excellent resources for you:

Without any more delay here are the questions.  Please comment or email if you need more information.

Question: Is there a webcast on life cycle management?
Answer: There is a content session developed, but I don't see a webcast currently scheduled. There IS one on "IT Governance - Keeping Control of your SharePoint Sites" happening on November 29 at 11:00AM PST.

Question: What about SQL 2000 upgrade?
Answer: That's really a separate issue. You can do it, and SharePoint won't know or care that you're running on 2005. But you do get the benefits of 2005 in as far as database management, redundancy and availability, reporting, backup/restore, etc.

Question: SharePoint services version 2 was a free add on for win2k3, how about this product?
Answer: This is a product that runs on top of the new SPS v3. It's a part of the Microsoft 2007 Office System. Pricing information can be found here: https://www.microsoft.com/office/preview/info/pricing.mspx

Question: Is there a published step by step upgrade for SBS2003 with SharePoint 2 to SharePoint 3 that leaves SBS2003 fully functional?
Answer: I don't know off hand. For that you should watch the SBS site (https://www.microsoft.com/sbs ) for information relating to this upgrade.

Question: So how should you migrate to SPS V3 before it is available or is it still in beta?
Answer: SharePoint Services V3 is still in beta, but the latest Tech Refresh is available for download located here:

Question: Is SharePoint 3 far enough along that if you create a test site with 3 you can upgrade it to the final version when it is released, or should you plan on just trashing any work done with the beta?
Answer: It's never recommended that you run beta or pre-release software in production. We can't guarantee that it will work - and that includes the stability of the upgrade to the final released version from non-released versions.

Question: Follow up Beta upgrade. I am talking about starting a new site in SP3 Beta and then using that test site in producing when the product releases. Will I lose my test site in going to the release version?
Answer : I don't know that there will be a supported upgrade from pre-release to release - so it's not guaranteed to work.

Question: When will prescan be available as a separate download, i.e., not part of beta TR, just like spin and spout was available for download?
Answer: It will be separate download. (Notice this not-yet-completed documentation on this, and the "<link to come>" placeholder.) https://technet2.microsoft.com/Office/en-us/library/3479e99e-0734-4237-a412-9fc42bf8bd251033.mspx?mfr=true

Question: It's been announced that Office 2007 is going "gold" this month. Does that mean MOSS 2007 also?
Answered: Tentatively yes, but I do not stay that close to the product development cycle.

Question: I heard that there will be a prime tool? Can you tell us more about it, when to use it and when it will be available.
Answer: I haven't seen any news about this, so I don't know. Check through the documentation on Upgrading for more information: https://technet2.microsoft.com/Office/en-us/library/f11e6c4f-dc2a-4d17-a2c8-9455792b4b9b1033.mspx?mfr=true

Question: is it only db backup we should do before upgrade? in case on any problem during upgrade, what are the steps to follow
Answer: Here are some 'best practices', which includes information on what to backup and why: https://technet2.microsoft.com/Office/en-us/library/f11e6c4f-dc2a-4d17-a2c8-9455792b4b9b1033.mspx?mfr=true

Question: Full Online Documentation (some parts still under development):
Answer: https://technet2.microsoft.com/Office/en-us/library/f11e6c4f-dc2a-4d17-a2c8-9455792b4b9b1033.mspx?mfr=true

Question: Will you be able to browse, open and save SharePoint documents from the File Open dialog and any program using the Open File dialog built into any windows program? In other words will SharePoint documents just look like another group of folders and files to any application?
Answer: Yes. Of course, if the document has special treatment that can also be handled within the application, then the application will have to be developed for it. Example: Word 2007 let's you open the doc, and then later check it out from within Word. Also check in, and even provide new version information for version control info.

Question: In a farm, say a medium server farm, what server should you upgrade first? WFE1? complete, then IDX - complete and then WFE2 - server type-web frontend?
Answer: Check out the "Gradual Upgrade" documentation mentioned above.

Question: How do you migrate the single signon database in the data migration scenario?
Answer: From this page: https://technet2.microsoft.com/Office/en-us/library/4d7a8038-4b27-4bd8-a855-585db4e924a81033.mspx - "The upgrade process creates a new configuration database to store configuration data for Office SharePoint Server 2007 . Configuration data from the SharePoint Portal Server 2003 configuration database is copied into the new database. Single Sign-on is upgraded (it registers a new Office SharePoint Server 2007 service that talks to old Single Sign-on (SSO) database)."

Question: Is there a centralized location for MOSS upgrade errors/troubleshooting information that you could recommend?
Answer: There is a troubleshooting page on the MOSS 2007 TechNet Documentation pages, so that will be it. (It's not yet completed, however.) https://technet2.microsoft.com/Office/en-us/library/ef7f7810-97f9-487e-ac8c-dacd218501b41033.mspx

Question: When migrating from WSS v1 to WSS V2 you could migrate one Site Collection at a time using SMigrate from a V1 server farm to a V2 server farm without the need to upgrade the V1 farm first. Why is there no command line migration tool to move sites from WSS V2 to WSS V3?
Answer: Okay, I verified there is no command line tool to perform this task,  When you look at the upgrade methods two methods make this very easy.  One is the Gradual path which allows you to move over the databases as needed, and the other is with a simple database attach and move the data that way.  Both we discussed during the web cast.

Question: Does MOSS stsadm have the ability to work with sub sites or top sites only still?
Answer: Depends on what your trying to do, you can export the sites to a XML blob and that should handle it.