All the important and difficult parts of moving data from an old ebase release to the current release is done as part of a small FileMaker application called Updater.fp5. This application does the work of importing the records and running the scripts that do the necessary data conversions.

In the simplest case, Updater.fp5 is run as part of the automated installer/updater, so users will normally not ever see it. However it is possible to directly run the Updater.fp5 application. This is useful in a few cases:

- an automated updater isn't available

- the user/administrator wants more control than the automated installer provides

Starting the Updater.fp5 application directly is called 'Semi-automatic' mode.

Since this is a FileMaker application, a full copy of FileMaker is required. The rest of this article describes how to use this semi-automatic mode. (Note that these instructions are the same for Windows and Mac unless otherwise noted).

PRECONDITIONS:

- This process works for updating a single user installation of ebase only. It doesn't work for the runtime version nor for client/server (but see below). It requires a copy of FileMaker to be installed.

- Please be sure to back up the entire ebase folder prior to starting an update. The update process does NOT modify existing files in any way - but one should always have a complete backup just prior to updating.

UPDATING:

- Install a complete single user version of EbasePro2.20. You may want to move your old ebase folder to a different name (say ebase.old), and install the new version using the same (old) folder name. This will allow any menu items and shortcuts to continue to work.

- You must manually copy the 10 files that contain all your old data into the new ebasePro folder with the .200 suffix replaced by .upd. Note that if you are updating a client/server installation, copy these files from the server. An easy way to do this:

- create a new folder 'upd' on the desktop

- go to your OLD ebase installation

- copy: CodeGenerator.200, Contacts.200, ContactLocations.200, Ebase.200, EnhancedData.200, Links.200, Locations.200, Log.200, Lokey.200, Main.200 to the new 'upd' folder

For each file:
- change the suffix to .upd. Ignore any warnings (in windows) about changing file types.

- copy all the files in the 'upd' folder to your new EbasePro installation folder. (NOTE: you shouldn't be overwriting any files: if you are prompted to overwrite a file you probably missed changing the suffix!)

In your ebasePro folder you should now have 2 copies of each of the above 10 files - one with a .200 suffix, one with a .upd suffix

- Navigate to the new EbasePro folder and double-click on Updater.fp5

- Follow the instructions! At the top of the second screen (Step 1 of 4) it should display what version it believes it is updating from.

- The time it takes it totally dependent on the # of records. With 100's of records it takes just a few minutes. With 10000's of records it can take hours.

- The updater will exit when it done.

- You will need to change any shortcuts or menu items to point to the new Ebase Folder

- That's IT! except....

POSTCONDITIONS:

- It is important that there is exactly 1 copy of ebase files on any given computer. For client/server installations this is absolutely critical --it is less so for single user installations --but is best practice to avoid serious confusion. The easiest way to do this is to simply take the old ebase folder and use WinZip or 'Create Archive' (on a Mac) to create a zip file of the contents. You can then safely remove the folder.

UPDATING A CLIENT/SERVER INSTALLATION:

To use the semi-automatic updater with a client/server installation the basic model is to:

- install the single user version on a client

- stop the FileMaker Server and copy the 10 data files from the server to the new client (changing the suffix)

- do the update

- check that the new single user version is complete

- move (not copy) all the server side files back to the server and restart the server.

Submitted by Chris Wagner on Sat, 08/12/2006 - 02:56.
ebasePro | ebasePro-Mac | ebasePro-Windows | Upgrading