Looks like it will be easiest to do all the work on old server then transfer everything intact to new host when we're ready.

 

Mike

If you are using the "Keyword Rich URLs" feature, you have to be careful here as the URL rewriting there is typically applied at the root level, so it will remain true in the dev copy of the site. That is if you click one of these "pretty" URLs in the dev copy, it will take you to the production category or product page (without changing the URL!). You will want to manually change your URLs back to the dev location, e.g.
change /productcart/pc/My-Category-c123.htm to /productcartdev/pc/viewcategories.asp?idcategory=123

and /productcart/pc/My-Product-p987.htm to /productcartdev/pc/viewprd.asp?idproduct=987

Another point of crossover will be checkout as the store will redirect to the settings you have in the CP for HTTPS. You could edit the settings in the dev copy, but I'd recommend not doing that and just manually switching up the URLs again here, e.g. change /productcart/pc/onepagecheckout.asp to /productcartdev/pc/onepagecheckout.asp

Specifically: "In other words, will the 3.51 software run on a v4.x DB structure?"

Yes indeed it will just fine. The updates to the db are simply adding things that the 3.51 won't even "know about". For example, the saved carts tables used for customers being able to explicitly save their carts and for the application to notify them that it has a cart for them from the last time they visited the site (if they left the site with a cart still open). 

Please take the following approach and you will have the easiest time at performing the upgrade.

 

- Copy the PRODUCTCART folder (or whatever it is named) to a folder called PRODUCTCARTDEV, then set the permissions as documented in the installation instructions in the WIKI.

 

- Edit the file /productcartdev/includes/productcartfolder.asp to contain "PRODUCTCARTDEV" instead of "PRODUCTCART" (or "STOREDEV" instead of "STORE", depending upon what you named that folder.)

 

- You now have a development copy of the store that can be upgraded out of public view, leaving the live store fully functional.  DO NOT create a dev copy of the database unless you flat out know what you are doing and have a very intentional reason for doing so.  It is NOT necessary.

 

- Now begin performing the upgrade steps against the DEV copy of the store.  The LIVE database will be upgraded, the 3.51 store will play nice as if it never happened, and when you are finished with the upgrade, all you have to do is change the folder names so that DEV becomes LIVE and LIV is retained as a pre-upgrade backup.

 

Note that there is a conflict between the v3 and v4 session variables that contains the shopping cart contents.  Specifically, the v4 cart array session variable is longer than it  used to be.  If you browse to a URL in the v3.51 store folder (or in the root of the site if (for example) you migrated the home page to the root, the array will be initialized to the old (shorter) length.  The moment you try to browse to a URL in the v4 folder, the script will crash.  Solution:  close all of your browsers of the same type (all your firefox or IE browsers), thus killing off your session variables, then browse DIRECTLY to the URL in the DEV folder.  If you make a point of NEVER browsing to the v3 store before viewing v4 pages, you avoid this.

 

Let me know if this helps.

 

No problem on timescale for 4.7

 

Still not sure about DB route though. The 4.x software/DB will be on the new server whilst the v3.51 system carries on working.

 

Is it possible to run the v4.x database scripts on the 3.51 database so it can just be transferred over once the new site is ready? In other words, will the 3.51 software run on a v4.x DB structure?

 

Presumably worst case is at the last possible stage we'll need to run the upgrades on the current live system just for the DB changes and then migrate the DB over to the new server. It won't matter about any mods on the original system because they will have already been worked into the new v4.x setup.

 

You have the update path correct, though there are some service packs that need to be done along the way there too. I would not recommend trying to short-cut it. If you "check for updates", you'll get the exact update path you need to follow.

However, if you use PayPal, you might want to wait until end of month for the release of 4.7.

You can apply the db updates on your 3.51 database with no worries. They will not affect the live 3.51 site.

The PDF generation uses FPDF (no Persists component required).

 

Am I right in thinking that v4 needs to be applied, then 4.1, 4.5 and 4.6?

 

If so, it's not a problem but is there any shortcut? We won't be rushing anyway as it will be done on a dev site before switching over.

 

However, one issue that does concern me is that we will have a 3.51 database running live while 4.6 is being sorted out. What would be involved in moving the live data on to the 4.6 site as we obviously won't be able to just backup and restore to the new site. If there's any commercial operators that have done this, I'm happy to hear via PM on costs.

 

Also, I see that customer documents can be produced as PDFs now. Does this use Persists ASPPDF?