Hi everyone,

I'm currently trying to restore DNN to another site (for lack of a better word) from and existing DNN site.  What I want to do is take an existing DNN install and export it so that all unused modules are ignored.  The current install of DNN has some 3rd party modules that aren't being used and I would like to clean it up.  I realize this can be done by deleting those modules from the admin page, but I am also trying to learn more about DNN in the process.  The previous install is from another developer and this would be my way to sort of take ownership of the project if you know what I mean.  I know about exporting a portal template and then importing it on the new site, but even that causes problems in that paths show up as '/Portals/0/...' instead of 'Portals/0/...' which breaks all the img links etc.  Why this happens I am at a loss.  I also don't want to just backup the entire database and restore it.  I'm going to be backing up only this db tables that are being used.  I realize this is a vague request for help, but I was hoping someone has done this sort of thing before and would have some words of wisdom.  

Currently the portal I am 'exporting' has a portal folder '1' and I am restoring it to a portal with a folder id '0'.  When I create the template file I do a find/replace on 'Portals/1' to replace with 'Portals/0'.  

Are there any caveats I should be aware of in doing such a thing that people know about?  Are there steps to follow?  The process I am trying to follow (so far without luck) is:

- export the portal template and do a string replace as mentioned above

- install the template on the new site and apply the correct skins and containers

- go through a list of all used modules and attempt to create install packages from them.  Some don't work, like ActiveForums as I get a permission error on web.config

- install these packages that I have created from existing modules

- determine what db tables are being used by these modules and backup/restore those tables to the new sites db

- go to each page and install the module that's needed.

Sorry for the length of this help request but I tried to be thorough in my explanation without too much overkill.

Thanks for any help people may have.

Gordon

Much appreciated Stuart.  I have noticed this is proving ot be a nightmare.  Things like importing existing Blog data can introduce issues because of embedded links in blog messages.  If these links go to other pages on the site they will no longer work as the newly installed site will not have the same sequence of tab ids.

It's been an good learning process though.

Gord