I had an old site that was still running 2.1.2 using the Jet database. Since there isn't a Jet - SQL server upgrade path I create a SQL server version of the site using 4.3.7 on my local server. Things went pretty good because I created an install template that had the entire sturcture so the install created a skeletonized site. I copied and pasted the data and had it all worked just fine locally. So I did an export of the entire portal (with content) and used that as the install template.

So far so good.

But upon the install on the host all the annoucements were lost as well as some links. Since there were a lot of annoucemnts and I didn't want to cut and paste again, I decided on plan B. I backed up the local database copy of the site, and reloaded it on the online site. Everything looked great, but then I couldn't log in. Then I realized that a different machine key was liekly in the web.config, so I pulled down the online web.config, copid the keys from the local version, and copied it to the online site. Still no joy. I tried reloading the database again, and using the local web.config, but still no logins worked.

I finally registered a new userid and that worked, but obviously it wasn't in the proper roles so I opened the database and make by new user a super user, then tried to update the passwords on the other userids. Updates failed.

So I then tried resetting a password and that worked! So I had to reset all the passwords for the adminsitrators and super users, but that was a real pain in the tucas.

Now it seems like I could be able to upload a database to another site and make that work, but obviously the install created something besides web.config that has a reference to the old keys. I'd prefer the portal tempalte, but until all modules support export / import that's off the table.

Any idea what went wrong?