Please Help Migrating to VM 2

[from_au]

Hi everyone
This is my 1st post and im sure you guys can help me with my issue, currently im running a web template with joomla 1.5 and Virtuemart 1.1.9, im planning to use different template which use joomla 2.5 and Virtuemart 2.xx, fortunately my hosting support unlimited website which means i can creat a subdomain or use a new domain for the new template to upload and try.
My concern is i have customers who has registered an account on my website, i dont want them to creat account again on the new website what can i do to keep the user account safe?
i dont want to affect my new website for couple of days setting up the new template, can i install the new template with joomla 2.5 as new website and use akeeba to back it up and restore it on my current website and replace it? will that keep the user account?

Please help, your help is appreciated

[GJC Web Design]

No - the sequence is

This is the way I do it.

1. On a fresh clone of your old site (make from Akeeba) -  upgrade to Joomla 2.5 via the normal upgrade process (plenty of good tutorials if you search)

now you have a joomla 2.5 with all your users etc from b4 - now do your new template etc and find all the other modules, comps and plugins that need updating/replacing)
there are migration tools to buy that can help with this - but are only useful/nesscesary if you have other 3rd party comps etc that you want to migrate - the inbuilt Joomla migration normally works fine
Ignore VM at this point

2 so now you have a fully working J2.5 site with all the users, menus etc from the J1.5 - test , test and test  and backup - ignore all broken VM stuff

3. now install VM2.6.1 - no sample data!  check in admin that you have the correct language and currency set

4. now with phpmyadmin transfer all the OLD vm tables to the new database and ftp the old VM images to the new path (std. is images/stories/  )

5. In the new VM tools & migration menu (enable in the VM admin) go to the migration tab and click start migration

6. wait - in a few minutes hopefully you have a working shop -- with all products, orders, users etc from the old one

7. learn VM2.0 - it is totally different from VM1.1. and takes some getting used to if you haven't used it before - then check , backup, test
if all working move it to the root and go live

What you do with users and orders that may have come in to the old site while doing this is up to you - some take the shop off line, others patch in the new users and orders etc - there are various ways

It isn't simple and requires a lot of methodical work - the point is always have backups to go back to
I find also that VM migration is the least of the worries - often old defunt J1.5 comps are more difficult to replace - depends entirely whats in your site

[from_au]

Thanks for your quick reply, just a few questions,

1. will Akeeba backup the database as well, or do i need to create new database for each restore i might need to do?
after doing the upgrade on a seperate folder as 2nd website, to move it to the root do i need to just copy and paste all files or back up the upgraded site with akeeba and restore it to the root using Akeeba?

Thanks

[GJC Web Design]

akeeba stores the DB info in it's files - when you do a restore you have to provide a new database for it to restore to

when finally finished (I assume you have a cPanel host) I normally zip the complete folder structure except the new folder where you did the new install and save that in a folder above the public_html folder
this is your "if everything falls on a heap" rescue

then zip the new folder contents (all these things are very easy and very fast in cPanel - if you have Plesk or some other god awful hosting panel - I wish you luck)  and move that above public_html (this is all to guard against finger trouble)

Then (deep breath) delete everything in the public_html

Shift the newfolder zip into public and expand - theres your new site in 5 mins...
remember it is running on your new db!

[jenkinhill]

I just drag & drop the files with FTP. But I always have plenty of backups just in case.........