As there isn’t really any clear documentation on how to upgrade to Community Server 2.0 from .Text, I figured I’d hammer out a quick post outlining the steps needed to accomplish the migration.  Total time to implement should be in area of 1–2 hours depending on the issues you run into (and unfortunately there could be several).  The list of steps isn’t actually that long, but it’s the tediousness that could be putting some folks off as there isn’t a direct path from .Text to CS2.0 (though Kevin should be releasing an updated version of his migration tool at some point).

Here are the steps:

1. First you need to make sure you’re running at least version .95 of .Text.  The easiest way to check your version number is to view the source of any page in your browser and look at the meta:generator tag.  If you need the .95 binaries (or source files), unfortunately it looks like .Text has been pulled from the GotDotNet workspace page.  I have a copy laying around here somewhere though, so feel free to email me and I’ll send it to you.
2. You can skip the .Text to CS1.0 migration and go straight to CS1.1.  The CS1.1 files are located here.  You will then need to obtain the .Text to Community Server utility, which is located here, with more information concerning the utility located here (and there is a good readme file in the converter download that outlines the instructions as to its use).  The way I do my upgrades are to make a copy of the database instead of upgrading it directly (just upgrade the copy…if anything goes wrong you don’t have to deal with going through restores).
3. While not 100% necessary, I would set up the CS1.1 website as well just to make sure everything went smoothly.
4. You’ll then need to upgrade CS1.1 to CS2.0.  The CS2.0 files are located here.  You will need to use one of the web installers as the MSI package is only for A) local installations of CS and B) new installations (no upgrades).  The readme included with the CS2.0 download explains the steps to upgrade your database to CS2.0.
5. Finally, you’ll need to configure the CS2.0 website files, which is usually as easy as changing your connection string to point to your database.  There are several other tweaks that I do for “out of the box” installations, and Jaxon Rice has been posting about most of these in his CS Tips and Tricks series.  Also, the new control panel is vastly superior and easier to use, though it could take a while to get acquainted with it.  I recommend just poking around, or you can read the documentation located here.

As always, community based support is located over on the CS.org forums (you can of course email me directly if you’d like, but I get at least a dozen CS related emails a day, so the response time is usually not that quick).  It’s also worth pointing out that you should have a look at my previous post about a couple of .Text to CS related gotchas you could run into; I’ve seen several instances of these issues reported on the forums, even if you haven’t used your CS installation for posting (i.e. you upgraded straight to CS2.0 from .Text).

CS2.1 is slated to be released towards the end of May (this is unofficial) and will be focused mainly on bug fixes and some features that didn’t make it into CS2.1 (though there will be a couple of new features slated specifically for this release…stay tuned to the CS announcement forum for more information concerning the 2.1 release).

As stated before, the process itself is pretty straightforward and simple, but can be a bit time consuming so block off a couple of hours to get it all done and working properly…if you have to put the kids to bed in an hour I wouldn’t recommend starting this now.  I think you’ll really like the new features of CS2.0, and if you have the option to do so I would highly recommend obtaining the CS2.0 for Asp.Net 2.0 binaries (or SDK) and running on Asp.Net 2.0…performance increases are phenomenal.  Good luck with your migrations.

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