WSS3 sharepoint upgrade to Sharepoint Foundation 2013

SBS 2003 and 2007 use the WSS3 version of sharepoint. To upgrade from that to a current version can be a bit tricky. It involves upgrading to the 2010 version of sharepoint foundation and then to 2013. To do this safely install two new servers one for SPF 2010 and one for SPF 2013

Plenty of excellent blog postings explain the details but in summary the steps are:

1. Make sure your source sharepoint wss3 is up to date (needs to have latest updates for conversion to succeed). You can backup an older one and restore to a current version one for the export.
2. Make SQL backup using SQL tools or SQLCMD (“”)
3. Install a foundation 2010 Sharepoint, if you backup is larger than 4 gigs then install it as a farm with SQL server or SQL express R2 (gives 8 gigs). Make sure it is up to date as some earlier versions have issues with upgrade.
4. Restore the SQL backup of you content database to the new server (either over or into a new database, I did it into a new one called wss_content_wss3 to make it clear it was from the old server.
5. Use powershell commands https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff628582.aspx
   1. dismount-spcontentdatabase https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff607764.aspx
   2. test-spcontentdatabase https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff607941.aspx
   3. mount-spcontentdatabase https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff607581.aspx
6. Reset site collection administrators accounts (needed if not still in domain etc…), check on Alternative mappings. May need to give access via web application for testing.
7. Once Sharepoint Foundation 2010 version is working do SQL level backup of contentdatabase.
8. Restore the SQL database to Foundation 2013 server. Make sure this server is up to date
9. Use powershell commands https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff628582.aspx
   1. dismount-spcontentdatabase https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff607764.aspx
   2. test-spcontentdatabase https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff607941.aspx
   3. mount-spcontentdatabase https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff607581.aspx
10. Reset site collection administrators accounts (needed if not still in domain etc…), check on Alternative mappings.
11. Do upgrade to Claims authentication for user accounts https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg251985.aspx
12. Do Schema database upgrade powershell Upgrade-SPContentDatabase https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff607813.aspx

That was simple wasn’t it

The things that caused me issues were:

• If site settings and other editing things give you errors and “list not found” or “object not found” errors check on your site alternative mappings settings.

Fixing new default spacing on menu

SharePoint 2013 has large gaps in the menus on the quicklaunch (and lots of other spots). I guess its for fat fingers on touch screens. We don’t use them so wanted to close it up.

The style to change is (this was padding:5px 20px; – I changed it to 1px (which gives a gap of two I think).

.ms-core-listMenu-verticalBox li.static > .ms-core-listMenu-item { display:block; padding:1px 20px; }

Make this change to your master page (seattle.master in my case).