Sharepoint–MOSS 2007 - How to move a site from one place to anoter

Do you want to move your site under another site? Then follow these steps and enjoy!

Note:As usual follow up all the logical steps to protect your production environment.Be wise.

Method used: Import/export

Properties of import/export: GUIDs are not preserved (alerts, workflows, and some properties are lost with the stsadm import/export process ) but security user features are saved (not in backup)

Note that import/export does not include some site settings, such as Recycle Bin state and alerts.

Why import/export and not backup/restore? Because the second one only works from a root site, it´s not working for a site collection only.

Ie. We´re going to follow an example for understanding better the idea, prepared?

We want to move our site http://portal/sites1/Commercial under http://portal/sites12

Prerequisites

Assuming you have access to the server as an admin, use STSADM.EXE (strong & powerfull sharepoint command-line) to export and then import the site collection into the new location.

Check the amount of free space counting the sites:

C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server tensions\12\BIN>stsadm.exe -o enumsites -url http://portal/site1

Procedure

- Create an empty web:

C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\12\BIN>stsadm -o createweb -url http://portal/sites12/Commercial

Operation completed successfully.

- Export our original site:

C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\12\BIN>stsadm -o export -url http://portal/sites01/Commecial -filename c:\exportsite1.cmp -includeusersecurity -versions 4 -quiet

Log file generated:

c:\exportsite1.cmp.export.log

Operation completed successfully.

Check the export´s log located in the same folder than the log and check the size. If there´s ony few kb instead og some Mb.. check the account your´re using to connect on the application server.

Log checked: 0 errors.

Explication of every flag:

–includeusersecurity : It ensures that the archived content or site will have the same permission requirements as the original.

-quiet: Recommended. Suppresses the output of export progress information to the display window. The final export status (“Operation completed successfully.”) will still be displayed.

-version 4: ensures that all content regardless of version will be included in the archive.

-Import the original site to the new location:

C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\12\BIN>stsadm -o import -url http://portal/sites12/Commercial -filename c:\exportsite1.cmp -includeusersecurity -quiet

Log file generated:

c:\exportsite1.cmp.import.log

Operation completed successfully.

Ending

The last step would be to delete the originl site after checking that the new emplace works properly.To avoid any mistake I would keep the old site collection locked (only read access) for some time and after I would delete it. It´s only a recommendation.

Possible issues:

• Has been imported only the structure and the lists and document library are missing?? Please check the account you used to connect on the WSS server