I moved my dnn install several times but didn't do it 'manually'.

I used Evotiva Backup which has a restore pack and it makes it really easy to do it.

I know it's not the steps you asked for, but I figured I'll share just in case you get stuck it's good to have second option.

Mark,

I moved DNN installations several times, upgrading the OS from Windows 2000+ to 2012-, and also upgrading SQL Server from 2000+ to 2012- without any problems. I never experienced any "fragility" or frustration, so let's explain how I did it (I assume you have DNN and SQL Server on the same machine, otherwise let me know).

1) Make a backup of the SQL Server database.
2) Make a backup of the files - you can do this by zipping the file system, only to have less files to copy from one server to the other. I use 7zip for that, as the internal windows zip/unzip mechanisms seems to a bit unreliable sometimes at least they have been in the past), and if you use the 7z-format instead of the zip-format, you can really have a very strong compression.
3) On the new server, install SQL Server and IIS. Be sure to activate the necessary features in IIS, at least these are the required .Net frameworks, and for some reasons you might need some IIS 6 compatibility (there are some extensions around that need it, I don't know if you use any of them) - whatever is activated on your Windows 2008 server you should activate here.
4) In IIS manager, create an Application Pool. Assigne the necessary .Net framework, and make sure to set it's identity to AppPoolIdentity. Let's call it "DNNAppPool" (you may call it what you want, but I'll use "DNNAppPool" as a reference below)
5) Restore the database.
6) Create a login (in SQL Server Security - the "main" one, not the Security option under the restored database!). The name of the login is "IIS AppPool\DNNAppPool" (or whatever you called the AppPool in step 4).
7) In the properties of this login, assign a "db_owner" mapping for the restored database.
8) In the file system, create a folder (C:\DNN or D:\MySite or whatever) and assign "Modify" permissions to the user "IIS AppPool\DNNAppPool" (see above).
9) Unzip the site into this folder. Using an editor, open the file web.config and adjust the connection string (using integrated security, and changing the server name to the new SQL Server instance). Save web.config
10) In IIs manager, create a new site, pointing to the created folder. Assign the Application Pool created in step 4, and the double click "Authentication" (in this site). Make sure "Anonymour Authentication" is activated, edit "Anonymous Authentication" and set the account from "Specific" to "Application Pool Identity".

Your're done. (And I hope I did not forget anything).

Best wishes
Michael

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