How to Migrate wordpress blogs from shared hosting to dedicated server?

Question

I have some clients wordpress blogs on my shared hosting and now i want to migrate all to a new dedicated server. the shared server is on linux and the new dedicated is windows 2008.

I know how to setup a new wordpress blog on the server using the Microsoft Web Platform Installer, but i have no idea how to setup an already running blog, where to put the db , how to change the connection string if needed, i don't know php.

Tell me if you faced this issue before or know a good article describe steps for this migration.

Note the server has IIS 7

Answer 1

Essentially, you need 3 things from your previous installation:

1. The database, you can export from your current installation and import in the new one (make sure both are running the same version of wordpress)
2. Any files you might have modified or uploaded: those would be themes and uploaded images (and maybe a favicon)
3. The configuration file at the root of the installation (included in the previous point, but this one is extra important). You will need to update 1 or 2 settings in there to point to the new database instance.

Another easy way to port is to simply make a backup of all the files for your current installation and just upload that at the root of the new installation (do not set-up a wordpress installation there, just upload the backed-up files). You will still need to change the configuration file and export/import the database.

If you are not familiar with those terms, I suggest you hire someone who is.

Answer 2

First make sure that PHP and MySQL are installed on the new server. If they are, here is the official tutorial: http://codex.wordpress.org/Moving_WordPress#Moving_WordPress_to_a_New_Server

Answer 3

WordPress (at least 2.8 versions) had a lot of media stored in the database using serialized data for the server filename path. When moving servers, you will not be able to maintain this by dumping the DB and re-importing it. Your users will experience a lot of problems with attachments for previous posts.

Even following official guide, I have had problems regarding this, and that was going from one linux server to another. Throwing Windows in the mix should be interesting.

Answer 4

This is one of the most challenging parts of WordPress administration.

Consider doing an XML export using the WordPress export/import tool (under Tools > Export, might need to be installed.). This is your only option if you don't have direct database access or are switching between single and multi-site hosting. Unfortunately, until WordPress releases a really solid export tool, this is the only real option.

Whether you're using a built-in WordPress migration tool or database dump/load, check especially image links and post tags carefully. A lot of things can get lost in the mix and in some very strange ways, even among identically configured databases running the same collation and character set. Good luck.