Upgrading from 3.70 to the latest NOP version

I need to upgrade our current system, 3.70 to the latest NOP version.  We have a fair amount of customized code, but no real changes to the db or table structure.   Would you recommend simply upgrading our existing db to the latest version via the upgrade scripts and then getting the latest version of source code and make the changes directly to that code?

Yes that is the best way
What are the customisations ?
Maybe some are already included in the new version or maybe there is a plugin available that does the customisation now

If you still need to make customisations then its best to do it via a Plugin so that in the future it is much easier to upgrade

For instance, we have a customized task to import products and their corresponding specification attributes into the db.  We also use other items to display certain content on the site in a different manor than their intended use.

I do have one question regarding this upgrade note:

(upgrading from 3.X to 4.X): If you want to upgrade from a version 3.90 to the latest version, you would need to install 4.00 first (over the existing database), run the 3.90 to 4.00 migration SQL script, and then upgrade to 4.10, 4.20 etc.
(dont know if it is needed if you are moving through to other versions) ?

If we are moving from 3.70 to 4.60 do we still need to do this step?  If so, what does it mean you would need to install 4.00 first (over the existing database), run the 3.90 to 4.0 SQL script and then upgrade to 4.10, 4.20?  I don't see anything in the release-4.00 Asset folder besides source code and upgradescripts.

Thanks

[email protected] wrote:
From here https://docs.nopcommerce.com/en/installation-and-upgrading/upgrading-nopcommerce.html

Yes this question has been raised before with no answer. The text is confusing and like you say what would running the v4.0 code over the v3.9 database do ?
Maybe it fixes some data in the v3.9 tables somehow ?

Ok.  I will run the 4.0 code against the 3.90 database prior to running the 4.0 upgrade scripts on the database.  One additional question, what is the difference between the nopCommerce_4.00_Source.rar and the Source Code.zip file?  Assuming we would use the nopCommerce_4.00_Source.rar for the code to run against the 3.90 database.

[email protected] wrote:
I think it is the same just a .Zip file rather than .rar

Thank you for the help.  I have one final question regarding this upgrade from 3.70 to 4.62.  At some point Nop moves away from Settings.txt and InstalledPlugins.txt and they are replaced with dataSettings.json and installedPlugins.json.  If we're currently on 3.70 version of Src code, how do we obtain or get the two new .json files for the 4.62 source code?  I don't see those files in the src zip file.

I was hoping to unzip the 4.62 source code and run against my newly upgraded sql db, but those files are needed to run.

Any help with this would be appreciated.

They will be generated as part of the install
If the old files are in the directory they will get upgraded
If no files are in the directory they will be created

I always find its best to run the install and create a new test/temporary database then check the syste is working
Then change the database string to the old database file to run the upgrade

I extracted the latest source code, version 4.60.2 and updated my VS 2022 to the latest version.  Once the VS upgrade was completed I compiled and ran the source code.  It performed as I would have expected by loading the initial install landing page asking to create a db and what not.  

Satisfied that everything was correct, I then took the zip file of the source code and extracted to the directory in which I have our source safe mapped.  Yet, when I tried to open the solution in this new directory every project in the solution failed to load with the same error for every project.  The SDK specified could not be found.  Can you help me understand what may have happened to cause this error and none of the projects to load in my newly created directory?  The solution in the original directory still works and all projects load just fine.  Is there a step or process I'm missing when moving the nop source code to a new directory?

[email protected] wrote:
What is source safe ?
Maybe the files are locked somehow - do you need to set the protection of the files after copy in ?