Recommended Upgrade Process 3.5 --> 4.3
Asked by Aaron J_ Schmidt:

I'm getting ready to upgrade my Confluence instance from 3.5.13 to 4.3.1.

I tried the upgrade on a test system, and it looks like things will go reasonably well.

After further reading, I noticed two steps that appear to be skipped when doing an upgrade vs. a clean 4.x install:

- Creation of the Confluence service

- Creation of the new Demonstration space

I'd like both of these things. I know I can manually recreate the service, but it sounds like I'll wind up having to do that every time I upgrade (instead of it being more automated for future upgrades if I'd done a clean 4.x install).

Is there a recommended approach to performing my upgrade while still getting these features of a fresh 4.x install?

(For example, would an upgrade / XML export / uninstall / reinstall / XML import work and be worthwhile?)

Are there any other things that a fresh install has that the upgrade path does not?

<br />


Answers:
author: Aaron J_ Schmidt
body: I actually found a solution which wound up giving me both the Demonstration Space and a fresh installation of Confluence with the services and Start Menu items installed. Here's what I did:

- In my test environment, do a fresh clean standalone install and do XML export of the Demonstration Space to be used later

- Stopped existing (3.5.13) service

- Uninstalled existing service ("service.bat remove Confluence")

- Performed upgrade of existing install using 4.3.1 installation .exe ("Upgrade existing")

- After upgrade was complete, performed other checks and updates (plugins, indexing, etc.)

- This updated my data to be 4.3.1 ready

- Stopped new service

- Performed new 4.3.1 Custom Installation to new installation and home directories (C:\\confluence\\home.deleteme)

- This gave me a fresh install without my data, but with the Start Menu items and service installed

- Stop new Confluence service

- Edit C:\\confluence\\installation\\confluence\\WEB-INF\\classes\\confluence-init.properties to point at my real home directory (C:\\confluence\\home)

- Start new Confluence service

- Import archived XML of Demonstration Space

Now I have a "clean" 4.3.1 install with the Windows service, Start Menu items, Demonstration Space, and all my data.


author: Harry Chan
body: Hi, if you already have a Demonstration space and never deleted it, it should remain in place.

One way you can get a demonstration space is:

- Create a new instance of Confluence (same version as the one you will upgrade to)

- Export the demonstration space

- Import the space it to your production instance

Not sure if it's worth the effort though.

Recreating the service would be minor effort. Are you on Windows or Linux?

comments: author: Aaron J_ Schmidt
body: The issue is that my existing Demonstartion Space is old content - not reflecting the new capabilities in 4.x -- so your suggestion of exporting from a fresh install and then re-importing that is a good one.

The issue with the Windows service is that if you manually create the service for 4.x (instead of letting the installer create it), future upgrades and installs won't automatically update the service. It's trivial, but a nuisance.

I found a solution which I'll post as a new answer.