Upgrading from R2 to R7

[moustafa]

Hi,

We currently have R2 running on a site and would like to upgrade to R7. Is it possible to upgrade directly or is it necessary to take intermediate steps?

Thanks,
Moustafa

[Katie]

Hi Moustafa,

You can setup a separate website and install R7 using a new blank database. Then you can make a copy of your live production database and restore this, so you will have a backup* to work with. Login to the merchant admin for the R7 install, go to the Configure > Security > Database page. Change the connection string to point to a COPY of the production database that you just made.

Now, I believe you can change the URL to go to http:// your - website - name/install/upgrade.aspx to upgrade the database.

After that, just find any of your customizations, product images, themes, etc. and merge/copy them over to the R7 install.

Once you have everything tested and are happy that the upgraded site is working, you can change IIS to point to the production domain to the new location, or backup the original website and move everything back over. This will depend on where your upgraded installation resides.

* If the production site has SSL enabled, you will want to disable it for the backup version. Open the ac_StoreSettings table and change the SSLEnabled field to False. Otherwise, you'll get locked out of the install after changing the db connection.

I think that I covered everything, but if not, please let me know. This information needs to be in our help site, and I'd like to know the steps here are accurate.

Thanks
Katie

[KenPalmer]

Wish I had found this thread yesterday. We're trying to upgrade from R2 to R7 as well. The help documentation which I saw at http://help.ablecommerce.com/ gave me the impression that we needed to upgrade incrementally (R2 to R3, then R3 to R4, etc.).

I was unable to get even the R2 to R3 upgrade to build with the dlls in the Upgrade zip file. The CommerceBuilder.dll files in these products differ, which I didn't anticipate. Upon applying the full install CommerceBuilder.dll, some of the build errors went away, but there were over 375 additional errors.
UpgradeGold-R2b4487-to-R3b5078-WSP -- File size for CommerceBuilder.dll is 2247 KB
AbleCommerceGold-GoldR3-b5078-WSP -- File size for CommerceBuilder.dll is 2313 KB

At any rate, we'll try your instructions Katie. We customized the look-and-feel of the site, so I'll need to apply those adjustments afterwards. The biggest concern that I have is migrating the data. I wish there was a script we could run that would just alter the database objects, and a script that would migrate the data.

[AbleMods]

Now, I believe you can change the URL to go to http:// your - website - name/install/upgrade.aspx to upgrade the database.

I thought the Upgrade.aspx page was only for going from Able 7.x to Able Gold? Don't existing Able Gold installs automatically check and upgrade the attached database if it's found to be a previous release?

[ForumsAdmin]

Don't existing Able Gold installs automatically check and upgrade the attached database if it's found to be a previous release?

Yes they do. This happens when the application starts for the first time. Upgrade within Gold is pretty straightforward. You just update the files and access AC. On first access to retail or admin the upgrade routine will run and automatically upgrade database.