Old VB 2 importers

[motorhaven]

Anyone have the zip file containing the old VB 2.x import scripts?

I have a migration I need to move from a very old forum to a newer version of VB. VB's impex doesn't support it, but VB 2.x's does support this old forum. So I'm going from it to VB 2. From there I'll use impex to upgrade VB 2 to VB 4.

[yellow_spider]

This might seem a silly idea but have you tried asking in a support request (if you can) over on the main site to see if they are willing to give you a copy of them ?

Although I would guess its probably unlikely they still have / would want to, the way I see it: There is absolutely no harm at all in asking them, worst case is they say "no!"

It would be possible to do this via a different software, a free one going VB2 > Free > VB3 or VB4 but that's quite messy as you likely know and things like posts could get a bit unformatted not to mention possible password loss etc etc. I'd consider that way the "last sensible DIY method"

[motorhaven]

I asked vb.com first via a support ticket. They were not terribly helpful.

This particular software saw it's last release in 2002 based on research no one else had ever made an importer for it. But early versions of the VB 2 importer supported it (later versions dropped it).

A two or even three-stage import isn't a problem for me. I do a great many custom migrations and have tools for formatting conversion. Password loss is something I already told the client they were facing, sometimes that can't be avoided due to different hashing methods not being supported by the final forum software.

Next week I start work on making changes to my own already existing custom import tools to accommodate this forum. I like to avoid reinventing the wheel if I can which is why I asked here, but sometimes I have to resort to rolling my own.

[Dave]

Originally Posted by motorhaven

I asked vb.com first via a support ticket. They were not terribly helpful.

This particular software saw it's last release in 2002 based on research no one else had ever made an importer for it. But early versions of the VB 2 importer supported it (later versions dropped it).

A two or even three-stage import isn't a problem for me. I do a great many custom migrations and have tools for formatting conversion. Password loss is something I already told the client they were facing, sometimes that can't be avoided due to different hashing methods not being supported by the final forum software.

Next week I start work on making changes to my own already existing custom import tools to accommodate this forum. I like to avoid reinventing the wheel if I can which is why I asked here, but sometimes I have to resort to rolling my own.

If you know how to code, you don't necessarily have to deal with the loss of passwords. You could modify the hashing algorithm in the target software to support both.

So you go from old_algorithm(password) to new_algorithm(old_algorithm(password)). I've done it before and it worked great.

[motorhaven]

I've been coding since the late 70s, so that's not the holdback.

Yeah, a rehash won't work at import time because you don't know the old password, only it's hash. And I know I can do it at first login, if it validates against the old has then rehash it and save. This is how Xenforo handles things like handling VBulletin imported users.

Unfortunately, the additional coding to add this to the framework I'm dealing with is simply not within the client's budget. And they are okay with users having to reset their passwords.