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UPGRADE NOTES FOR COMMUNITY SERVER 2008.5
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Before upgrading to Community Server 2008.5, please take a moment to read through these
notes *before* going through the upgrade process.


BACKUP YOUR DATABASE
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This should go without saying, but please make sure you create a backup of your
database *before* upgrading to Community Server 2008.5. We've done our best to ensure a
smooth upgrade process, but there are times when unforeseen issues (especially data
issues) can cause problems. The safest path to a smooth upgrade is to have a backup
of your database ready in case you need to rollback changes.


BACKUP YOUR WEB FILES
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This should also go without saying, but in addition to creating a backup of your
database, please create a backup of all existing Community Server web files as well.
Having a backup of all the web files, in conjuntion with a database backup, will
ensure the ability to rollback changes appropriately.


VIRTUALIZATION
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Virtualization is the term we use to describe the scenario when multiple Community
Server sites use the same database. For various reasons, Community Server 2008+ no
longer supports virtualization.

If your database contains only one Community Server site, there is nothing for you to
do as removing virtualization will be skipped during the upgrade process. However, if
your database contains more than one Community Server site, you will need to select
which site to upgrade. During the upgrade process, the selected site will be upgraded
and the data for the other sites will be *deleted* from the database.

For example, assume your database contains three Community Server sites: MySite1,
MySite2, and MySite3. The first thing to do is create a backup of your database for
each site you are going to upgrade. Meaning, if you are going to upgrade all three
sites, then you will create three separate backups of your database.

When you run the upgrade tool to upgrade MySite1, be sure the connection string is
pointed to the database where the upgrade for MySite1 will occur. During the upgrade
process MySite1 will be upgraded and all data for MySite2 and MySite3 will be deleted.

To upgrade MySite2, make sure the upgrade tool has the correct connection string to
the database where MySite2 will be upgraded (which should be different from MySite1).
During the upgrade process MySite2 will be upgraded and all data for MySite1 and MySite3
will be deleted. Repeat for MySite3.


PRIVATE MESSAGES ARE NOW CONVERSATIONS
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Part of the upgrade process involves converting all existing private messages into
conversations, a new feature of Community Server 2008. Please be aware that after the
upgrade is complete private message functionality is gone.


FILES, PHOTOS, AND POST ATTACHMENTS ARE MOVED INTO CFS
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Prior to Community Server 2008, files, photos, and post attachments have been stored
in a mix of the file system and/or the database. One of the new features of Community
Server 2008 was centralized file storage (CFS), which consolidates all those items into
a central location, either the file system or in Amazon S3 (if you have an account).
For upgrade purposes, all files, photos, and post attachments will migrate from their
current locations to the file system.

Please do not modify any settings in the <CentralizedFileStorage> node in the
communityserver.config file prior to upgrading. The upgrade tool is expecting to use
the default file system provider for CFS during the upgrade process.


UPGRADE TOOL CAN ONLY BE USED LOCALLY
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Due to the nature of upgrading files, photos, and post attachments to CFS, the upgrade
tool can only be used on a local Community Server installation. This leaves you with
two options for using the upgrade tool:

A.  Deploy the upgrade tool (and all related files) to the web server where Community
    Server is installed and run it from there.

OR
  
B.  Pull down all Community Server web files from the web server to your local machine,
    run the upgrade tool on the local copy, and then put all the files back onto the
    web server.

Assuming your connection string is valid and you can connect to the database from the
machine that the upgrade tool is running on, the upgrade tool can operate on the database
as needed. The upgrade tool is required to run locally because of the CFS upgrade.


FILESTORAGE FOLDER REQUIRES NETWORK SERVICE RIGHTS
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Once all files, photos, and post attachments have been upgraded to CFS, you will have
a folder in your Community Server web directory named 'filestorage'. In order for
Community Server to access everything in that folder, you must give it Network Service
rights.


SITE THEMES OTHER THAN HAWAII NO LONGER SUPPORTED
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The only site theme supported by CS2008.5 is the updated 'Hawaii' theme. If your 
site uses the 'Basic', 'Calypso' or 'Lean and Green' site theme from CS2008 or any 
other site theme from previous versions you will have to change to the 'Hawaii' 
theme. 

Existing themes may be incompatible with CS2008.5 and should be removed, renamed, or 
manually updated. When the theme is deleted, your site will automatically be 
switched to use the new 'Hawaii' theme.

The updater will attempt to determine if your current site theme is anything other 
than 'Hawaii' and ask if you would like to change to 'Hawaii'. 

If the upgrader cannot change your theme to 'Hawaii' or you choose not to have the 
upgrader make the change your site may not work properly. You can get your site 
into working order by renaming or deleting your existing site theme folder and 
the 'Hawaii' theme will then be used by default.


THEME NAME CHANGES AND REMOVAL OF 'DEFAULT' THEMES
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The 'default' blog theme was renamed to 'Calypso' in CS2008. Because of this, if you 
upgrade an existing site by copying the upgrade or web installer packages over the 
top of your existing CS2008 beta-1 or earlier installation, you may need to 
physically delete (or rename) the 'default' blog theme.

Existing versions of the 'default' theme may be incompatible with CS2008 and should
be removed, renamed, or manually updated.  This theme exists in the following 
folder: * web/themes/blogs/default


UPGRADE WALKTHROUGH
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Below is a small overview of the upgrade process.

1.  Create a backup of your database.

2.  Create a backup of all web files.

3.  Download Community Server 2008.5.

4.  Copy the files contained in the Web folder of the upgrade package into your existing
    Web folder so that they overwrite the existing files. This must occur before you run
    the upgrade tool.

5.  Verify your connection string to the database is correct. This will be located in
    either the web.config file or connectionStrings.config file.

6.  Unzip the upgrade tool to a location of your choosing. In it you will find a large
    number of files. The only thing you're concerned about is the upgrade tool itself,
    named CommunityServer.Upgrader.exe. Please leave all other files as-is.

7.  Double-click CommunityServer.Upgrader.exe to open the upgrade tool.

8.  The welcome screen asks you for the location of your current version of Community
    Server. Enter it or browse to it and click Next.

9.  At the next screen, verify the information presented is correct. If anything is
    incorrect, make the necessary changes and click Next.

10. If there are any conflicts between your file and photo galleries, you'll see a
    screen warning you of those conflicts. At this point you can cancel the upgrade
    to address the conflicts or continue on.
    
11. At the next screen, verify the correct site is being upgraded and click Upgrade.

12. Once the upgrade is complete, verify that the Community Server web folder contains
    the filestorage folder and all related contents. If it does not, copy the filestorage
    folder from the location of the upgrade tool to the web folder.

13. Grant the filestorage folder in your Community Server directory Network Service
    rights.


UPGRADE LOG
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During the upgrade process the upgrade tool keeps track of progress by writing a lot
of information to a log file. This file is named CommunityServer.Upgrader.log and is
found in the root folder of the upgrade tool. This file will be especially useful if
something goes wrong during your upgrade process, so please keep it around in case
you need to send it to us for troubleshooting purposes.


RE-RUNNING THE UPGRADE
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If something went wrong during the upgrade process and you need to re-run it, please
do so against a fresh backup of the database and Community Server web files. This will
ensure a clean slate for the upgrade tool and will help prevent additional problems.
