Your VB 3.8 to 4.0 Migration Stradegy
 

So now that VB has announced and released the new 4.0 platform that has all the bells and whistles, blog,forum,portal what are all you current 3.8 admins going to do in means of upgrade. Lets not discuss pricing in this thread just what you r thought are in regards to upgrading. For example I use vbportal and some use vbadvance for their site portal what are your plans with vb 4.0 suite since vb now has their own portal?

We also run with vbadvanced and various add-ons.

At the minute (without a demo :-( ) it looks like VB4 will completely remove the need for vbadvanced :-)

I think it might be best to install a fresh VB4 and then import all the data into it from VB3.x rather than trying to upgrade the database which has additional tables from vbadvanced (and mods which will no longer work).

I'll update just like all other versions ;)
take a backup first
remove any hacks I don't really need or that are being replaced with the 4.0 version
I'll more then likely set the style to the default skin, and work on getting a new custom one made or my current one ported over.

I feel better doing this way too. I did it in all upgrades until now.

Maybe because I was used to do this way when updating invision, where a lot of files are edited when installing mods. Even knowning that vB does not suffer with this, I continue doing the same old school way.

Note: vB4 itself will not cover the vbportal / vbadvanced features. you're talking about the new vb suite... you may still upgrade to vB4 without purchasing the suite.

I just have the blog so i'm guessing an upgrade might be easier but I want to make sure before hand that stuff like ibproarcade will work on it

Take a complete site back up.

Restore the back up on a local machine with no web access.

Delete all vB 3.x files from the forum directory.

Upload vB 4 files, and run the upgrade script

Begin converting styles/templates and other information into vBulletin 4

Ahhh you guys have scared me now.. I have a load of mods on my site:chatboxes, xboxlive stuff, arcade games ahhhh too many to list.

Sorry for being a noob here but what would happen if you upgrade without removing the mods? PHP errors Galore? Not found in database etc?

Do a test upgrade using WAMP/LAMP first to iron out any issues, document and perform the changes needed, and then run the the same process on your server..

Interesting question. I'll have to think about (a) whether it's worth the upgrade since some of our licenses have expired, and (b) whether it's worth upgrading at all even though I'll have a license because my site revolves mostly around the forums, the points and the "add-ons" than it will having blogs or extended "profiles" that people barely use anyways. I'll eventually have to pay for vb4 and vb5 if I wait to upgrade my current vB license since it could be many months until vB4 is released. This is a very difficult question. If I can't get into beta testing for vb4 given the complete rewrite then I'll have no option but to think of what options may exist long term.

Did you upgrade to VB4 suite? I'm using vbportal and my site crashed lastnight after my upgrade. If you did, please share the process.

Thanks