upgrade in parallel

[Hudzon]

I have a old 1.1.8 forum integrated to Joomla with Joomlahacks, 
what I want to do is install SMF 2.x in parallel in a separate directory and import everything from the old version without effecting the old version at all.
Kind of like doing a convert from another forum software.
Are there instructions for this ?

Basically I want to install a new SMF 2.x and New Joomla 3.X and use JFusion and have all my old forum and members imported to the new one.

[Arantor]

It's basically not possible to do what you're asking.

The changes from 1.1.x to 2.0 are so substantial the only way it works is if you upgrade in place.

[Hudzon]

But I can install PHPBB3 and convert SMF1.x than install SMF 2.X and convert the PHPBB3 to SMF 2.X
you would think there would be a convertor for 1.x boards so you don't have to worry about doing a restore if it goes bad.

[Arantor]

Nope, never been done that way. Same with 2.0 -> 2.1, upgrade in place only.

[Angelina Belle]

It sounds like you want to begin with a copy of your current SMF and upgrade it.  Do I understand correctly?

You can certainly do that. It might be simplest to create a brand new database, restore from backup to the new database, copy all the files over, do a repair_settings, and then move on to the upgrade once you have a copy of  1.1.x running properly.

If you are interested in testing the connection to JOOMLA, you might like to do the testing against a test copy of SMF and JOOMLA, kept far away from your live site, while you test and save any required customizations to be applied eventually to your live site.

I hope and trust the upgrade to 2.0 will be a benefit to your community site.