Before you can perform an in-place upgrade or database attach upgrade to SharePoint Server 2010, your existing Office SharePoint Server 2007 environment or new SharePoint Server 2010 environment must meet the following minimum requirements.

Hardware requirements:

SharePoint Server 2010 can only run on a 64-bit edition of the Windows Server 2008 R2 or Windows Server 2008 with SP2 O/S.

If you plan an in-place upgrade, your Office SharePoint Server 2007 installation must be running in a 64-bit Windows Server 2008 environment.

If your Office SharePoint Server 2007 installation is currently in a 32-bit environment, you cannot perform an in-place upgrade on the existing server or server farm.

You must install SharePoint Server 2010 on a different server or farm that supports 64-bit applications, and then move your data to that server or farm by using database attach upgrade.

Operating system requirement:

Windows Server 2008 or Windows Server 2008 R2:

SharePoint Server 2010 must be run on a 64-bit edition of Windows Server 2008 R2 or Windows Server 2008 with Service Pack 2 (SP2). If you are currently running Office SharePoint Server 2007 on Windows Server 2003 and intend to upgrade to SharePoint Server 2010, you must plan to have a sufficient number of Windows Server licenses for the deployment on the newer operating system.

To more easily discover and address any issues in the migration and upgrade processes, we recommend that you do not combine the actions of upgrading or migrating to Windows Server 2008 or Windows Server 2008 R2 with the process of upgrading to SharePoint Server 2010. You can combine migration to 64-bit hardware with migration to Windows Server 2008 or Windows Server 2008 R2.

Pre-upgrade checker:

The pre-upgrade checker is a command-line tool that you run in a Office SharePoint Server 2007 environment to find any potential issues for upgrade and to review recommendations and best practices.

STSADM.exe –o preupgradecheck

By using the pre-upgrade checker, you can find information such as the following:

A list of all servers and components in the farm, and whether the servers meet the following requirements for upgrading: 64-bit hardware and the Windows Server 2008 operating system.

  • The alternate access mapping URLs that are being used in the farm.
  • A list of all site definitions, site templates, features, and language packs that are installed in the farm.
  • Whether there are customizations in the farm that are not supported (such as database schema modifications).
  • Whether there are any database or site orphans in the farm.
  • Whether there are missing or invalid configuration settings in the farm (such as a missing
  • Web.config file, invalid host names, or invalid service accounts).
  • Whether the databases meet the requirements for upgrade — for example, databases are set to read/write, and any databases and site collections that are stored in Windows Internal Database are not larger than 4 GB.

Windows PowerShell command to check databases before attaching

You can use the Windows PowerShell cmdlet test-spcontentdatabase before you attach a content database to SharePoint Server 2010 to determine whether any server-side customizations are missing from the environment.

Test-SPContentDatabase [-Identity] [-AssignmentCollection ] [-DatabaseCredentials ] [-ServerInstance ] [-ShowRowCounts ]

Test-SPContentDatabase -Name -WebApplication [-AssignmentCollection ] [-DatabaseCredentials ] [-ServerInstance ] [-ShowRowCounts ]

EX:Test-SPContentDatabase -name WSS_Content_DB -webapplication http://sitename

Set the previous version databases to be read-only (database attach with read-only databases)

If you are using the read-only databases hybrid approach to upgrade, set the previous version databases to read-only before you back up the databases. In any type of database attach upgrade, you can also set the databases to read-only temporarily to ensure that you capture all the data in the backup so that you are restoring and upgrading the current state of the environment. If the databases are set to read-only, users can continue to view content, but they will be unable to add or change content.

To set a database to read-only in SQL Server 2000

In SQL Server Enterprise Manager, right-click the name of the database that you want to set to read-only, and then click Properties.

1) In the Properties dialog box, click the Options tab. 2) Under Access, select the Read-only check box, and then click OK.

To set a database to read-only in SQL Server 2005

1) In SQL Server Management Studio, right-click the name of the database that you want to set to read-only, and then click Properties. 2) In the Select a page section, click Options. 3) In the right pane, under other options, in the State section, next to Database Read-Only, click the arrow, and then select true.

To set a database to read-only in SQL Server 2008

1) In SQL Server Management Studio, in Object Explorer, connect to an instance of the Database Engine, expand the server, and then expand Databases. 2) Select the database that you want to configure to be read-only, right-click the database, and then click Properties. 3) In the Database Properties dialog box, in the Select a page section, click Options. 4) In the right pane, under Other options, in the State section, next to Database Read-Only, click the arrow, and then select True.

Visual Upgrade:

A new feature that is available with upgrade allows the server administrator or site owner to determine when and if the new look for SharePoint Server 2010 is used for a particular site collection. Server administrators can choose to adopt the new look and feel for all sites during upgrade, let site owners make the choice after upgrade, or keep the old look and feel for all sites.

If the server administrator lets the site owners decide, after a site is upgraded by using an in-place upgrade, a preview option is available in the site user interface. This option provides a preview of the SharePoint Server 2010 look for the site:

If the owner likes how the site looks and functions, the owner can accept the visual upgrade.

If the owner wants the site to keep the old look and feel, the owner can revert to the Office SharePoint Server 2007 look.

By default, the Office SharePoint Server 2007 look is retained. For more information, see Plan visual upgrade (SharePoint Server 2010).