Upgrading Navision 4.0 SP2 to SP3 (newbie question)

nextguy

Hi all,

I have to say that I am a newbie and I have looked at about 6 or 7 posts about this subject but I still do not understand. I need to upgrade our company from NAV 4.0 SP2 to SP3. I have in my possession an fbk backup of the live data as well as the SP2 client on my computer. Do I just need to install the SP3 client on my computer, create an empty database, and then restore the backup into it?

I read a lot of things about merging base objects and loading new ones but I don't understand what this means. The person that used to manage the database is no longer around and there are no more developers either so I don't have a fob file with these objects. If I open the current SP2 database with an SP2 client, can I export the objects and import them into my newly created SP3 database?

As I said, I am pretty much a newbie and I am not too sure what I need to do. We do not have the budget to hire an MBS consultant so I am really stuck doing this myself. Eventually I need to migrate the database to SQL Server 2005. I have read the documentation on Microsoft's site and understand that I need to first import the migrate.fob object and then back up the database to an fbk file. I can then open the SQL Server option of the client, create a new database on the server, and then restore the fbk file. In any case, this is for a later step. I first need to upgrade to SP3.

Thanks for all your detailed help

Alex_Chow

STOP!!!!!!!

Are you an end user or a NAV solution center?

As an end user, I highly recommended you to ask your NAV partner to help through this process.

If you're an NSC, ask the senior developer in your company for help.

nextguy

Alex Chow wrote:

STOP!!!!!!!

Are you an end user or a NAV solution center?

As an end user, I highly recommended you to ask your NAV partner to help through this process.

If you're an NSC, ask the senior developer in your company for help.

The answer to your question is complicated... Suffice it to say that I do not have any resources other than this website available to me.

Any help would be VERY much appreciated. Perhaps saying that I am a newbie is a bit strong since I do have experience with NAV... but the only part that I am very unsure of is the issue with customizations.

TIA!

DenSter

No offence, but that sounds a bit shady to me. Are you an employee at a NAV partner who is moonlighting on the side? If that's the case, I hope you are not using the developer license from your work.

If you don't know what you are doing, and this website is all you have, you are in trouble... Typically, you shouldn't be freelancing in something you don't know what it means. Although in principle it's not a very complicated topic, it's not something that can be explained with a few posts.

If you are talking about a full upgrade, then I would say save money until you can afford the external help, and stay away from doing any merging yourself. This is a task for an experienced C/AL developer, not to be taken too lightly.

If you are talking about only upgrading the executables, then you are on the right track. Take a backup of the SP2 database, uninstall all executables, install SP3 executables, create a enw database, and restore the backup. You should do this in a test environment first of course.

Alex_Chow

...

So are you an end user or NSC? This site is only helpful if you have specific questions, not to help you upgrade from start to finish.

nextguy

Ok let me explain further

I am an employee at a NAV partner and I am not moonlighting on the side. Typically I do not do these types of projects but I got involved because all the other consultants were busy and I am trying to advance myself. When I was asked if I knew how to do this upgrade I said yes since I figured it couldn't be that hard (in fact I am sure it isn't that hard once I figure it out). It turns out that it is more complicated than I thought and now I am stuck.

As I said, I shouldn't have called myself a newbie since I know my way around NAV a bit. But I generally stick to the capacity planning and database maintenance side of NAV and not the development.

So again, if anyone has some advice please share it.

Thanks!

nextguy

Alex Chow wrote:

...

So are you an end user or NSC? This site is only helpful if you have specific questions, not to help you upgrade from start to finish.

I am an NSC. I don't need help with the upgrade from start to finish... I only need to know how to deal with the objects that already exist in the SP2 database. At least I think that's all I need help with :P

Alex_Chow

If you're an NSC, check Partnersource for the Upgrade Toolkit. It details step by step on what you need to do from a specific version.

nextguy

Alex Chow wrote:

If you're an NSC, check Partnersource for the Upgrade Toolkit. It details step by step on what you need to do from a specific version.

I have the upgrade toolkit and from what I understand it is more for upgrading major versions (ie. nav 3 -> nav 4). Thanks anyways.

DenSter

Well nothing is hard once you figure out how to do it isn't it. Going from 4.0 SP2 to 4.0 SP3 is as easy an upgrade as they come. There is not a lot of object merging but still there will be merging, just not in any really big volumes, and there's probably not going to be any meaningful data migration.

I would suggest that you own up to being in trouble and get someone involved that does know, watch how they do it and learn (although I would not suggest any consultant to get into development unless they are planning a career change). I am sure your employer will appreciate your honesty when you come out and admit biting off more than you can chew, much more than a customer complaining to them about incompetence. In my opinion what's worse than incompetence (which is someone thinking they DO know when they really don't), is someone who know they are in a hole but refuse to get some help.

Oh and next time you get an opportunity like this, I'd suggest saying "never done it but I'll try to figure it out, I might need some help", instead of saying "I know how to do that".

idiot

Try using 4.0 SP2 Cronus & upgrade to SP3.
If nextguy had started with Cronus then I think he would have more support...
The issue here is learn by trial & error, but not with live data

npaltice

Are you wanting to do an executable upgrade or a functional upgrade? A functional upgrade means that you go through the whole process of a full-blown upgrade. An executable upgrade just means that you convert the executables for the newer software version. For example, if you are wanting to do an upgrade to take advantage of some new functionality in the newer version, then you need to go through the full-blown upgrade process. If you are just wanting to upgrade because your current version doesn't run on a new operating system, then you could probably get away with doing just an executable upgrade (possibly). For instance, the earliest version of NAV officially supported on Vista 64-bit is NAV 4.0 SP3 Update 6. If you are running an earlier version of NAV 4.0 and you want to upgrade your clients to Vista, then you can just do an executable "upgrade" (I call it a conversion) to NAV 4.0 SP3 Update 6. I know because we just tested this successfully. But this is a big deal because once you do that conversion, your users using the older client can no longer access the "converted" database.

By the way, I understand how you feel, but you really should find an experienced person at your company that you can buddy with. Otherwise you're going to get yourself into a sticky situation one day that could have potential client impact. This stuff takes a lot of time and effort to master everything you need to know to really feel comfortable "consulting". As a friend of mine said a long time ago, if you're going to wear a hat, you must first make the hat. You can't just put the hat on.