So I ran in to an interesting issue doing yet another migration this weekend for my current client.
The client had a department that was utilizing SharePoint through the B2TR period of SharePoint beta testing. I upgraded their server to RTM bits and then proceeded to so the migration to the production team site server using STSADM export. Seems all fine and dandy right?
Not really. Something interesting happened when I tried to import the exported content to the production server. I ran in to an error message telling me it couldn't find the IPFSSiteFeatures. Being that I know where to find the features, I thought I would check it out. I navigated to the Features directory to find that the folder was there that had the feature in it. Hmmmm…
So in doing more research I remembered that the department server that was running the beta SharePoint was utilizing the Enterprise edition. The server that I was migrating the content to was installed with Standard edition. So, in finding that the feature mentioned above was an Enterprise feature it would seem that the export/import commands on STSADM is doing more than just moving content and site information.
I guess this makes since when it is actually trying to recreate the same site that is being moved and a site template might be an Enterprise site. I went back and traversed the sites on the department server to see if they were utilizing any of the Enterprise related features and I couldn't find an instance anywhere on the sites I was exporting.
How did I get passed the problem?
Well, that is a good question. Via STSADM, I installed the features that it asked me to install, meanwhile keeping a list of features I was installing. Seeing as though they were Enterprise features I wanted to be sure to uninstall them after the import since we were not running the Enterprise license. After installing the features, importing the content, and uninstalling the features everything seemed to work just fine.
The moral of the story is that don't expect to be able to export/import content between the standard and enterprise versions of SharePoint.
I guess I also could have tried to use the Content Deployment capability that SharePoint has, but every time I have tried that I always ran in to errors that I couldn't track down or figure out.
Hope this helps.
Michael