Dave,

Look in the DNN Wiki for the suggested upgrade path. Upgrade your 6.1.5 to the next on on the path, and then follow along.

Don't forget to make backups at every step.

I'd recommend that you go to 7.4.0 and then wait for 7.4.2.

You will find all of the upgrades at dotnetnuke.codeplex.com. Download, unblock, and extract.

Yes, you will want to go to ASP.NET 4.5, and Integrated Pipeline Mode. I think that you can do this toward the end of the 6.x and before going to 7.x.

As you get into the later 7.x versions, you may find that you have to deal with some CSS issues. The standard default.css file got reworked at some point in there. It's not a big deal, but you will want to look through your site for issues.

And, you may need to do some skin changes. Mostly, that's simplifying skings and containers because the control panel is handled automatically and also the container "Action" buttons may be different, or you may end up with both old and new versions.

Again, make backups at every stage, in the event that you need to revert to fix a broken upgrade. (You may find some compilation errors along the way. Usually these are fixed by fully specifying the classes.)

And .... questions here work just fine when you get stuck!

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Joe Craig
Patapsco Research Group, Ellicott City, MD
DotNetNuke Development and Services (http://patapscorg.com)

I followed the suggested upgrade order on my localhost Win7 system. 
Disable and remove iFinity friendly URL because DNN7.* has this function.
Comment out PageBlaster references in web.config.
Upgrade from DNN 6.1.5 to 6.2.9 to 7.1.2 to 7.3.4
Enabled “advanced” in DNN’s friendyURL
Enabled PageBlaster, so that I could test that it still worked

Started testing and had to deal with minor skin issues:
   Had to move login block lower so that it wasn't covered by DNN admin bits.
   Had to remove Snapsis Hosts bits since they were in the DNN admin stuff.
 Decided that upgrade UltraMediaGallery from 8.6 to 9.8.9 and I get SQL errors about indexes. (Contacted them)

I start looking at admin and host pages that I rarely use (but need) and saw: 
  My “Roles Page” gives Object reference not set to an instance of an object. I don't add roles often - BUT
  My “File Management page” gives an “internal server error” popup but then the page appears.
  Adding a new “site alias” never unblurs the save button, so I can't add aliases

 I was pleased to see that I could export a site template with content and create a new site from it.

Any ideas about the "roles page" and "site aliases?"

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/Dave S