Backup and Restore using Sharepoint Designer

There are several errors that may occur when trying to restore a site using SharePoint Designer. "Cannot find ... exportsettings.xml" is the most common error. This is caused by SharePoint Designer stopping after the first of the exported cmp files is expanded and the software not picking up from the second file and continuing.

So far, Microsoft has missed the boat on this fix. It appears the Sharepoint Designer simply doesn't continue the extract (/a) switch when assembling the cmp file for download. I have seen some workarounds out of the web, but they are tedious especially for large sites. Here is what we have managed to come up with...

To back up a site, you must have administrator permissions for that site, but you do not require administrative access to the server that is running Windows SharePoint Services 3.0.

Go to: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310618 and download and install to the directory c:\cabsdk.

Create a subfolder c:\cabssdk\bin\SharePointBackup and create a c:\cabsdk\bin\SharePointBackup\temp folder

On your SharePoint Site, create a document library named SharePoint Temp

In SharePoint Designer, on the File menu, click Open Site.

In the Open Site dialog box, browse to and click the Web site that you want to back up, and then click Open.

On the Site menu, point to Administration, and then click Backup Web Site.

In the Backup Web Site dialog box, to include all subsites of the current Web site in the backup, select the Include subsites in archive check box.

Click Advanced, enter the SharePoint Temp document library within the site for temporary file storage, and then click OK. Note: Backing up a Web site requires a location to store temporary backup files.

In the Backup Web Site dialog box, click OK.

In the File Save dialog box, select the location where you want to store the .cmp file. Note: this part is not important as you will be creating the .cmp file manually.

In the File name box, type the name for the file, and then click Save. Note: If the site that you are backing up or restoring is large, the process can take quite a while.

Go to your SharePoint site recycling bin and locate the files it created (there may be more files if the site is bigger) and restore those files.

Using My Network Places, open the Sharepoint site and the temp document library. Copy down ALL .cmp files. The snt file is not necessary.

Determine which file it the first file of the cabinet files by sorting by name. It should be the top cmp file. This will be your firstcabfilename.cmp

Open a Command line to the c:\cabsdk\bin directory. Run the following command without quotes “extract /e /a c:\cabsdk\bin\sharepointbackup\firstcabfilename.cmp /l c:\cabsdk\bin\sharepointbackup\temp”

At the command prompt to the directory c:\cabsdk\bin and run “cabarc N SharePointRestore.cmp SharePointBackup\temp\*.*” (without quotes) Note: SharePointBackup\*.* should actually reflect the complete path to the subfolder you created and dumped the extracted files.

Using SharePoint Designer, with the destination site open, on the Site menu, point to Administration, and then click Restore Web Site. Note: You MUST restore to a blank site.

In the File Open dialog box, browse to and click the c:\cabsdk\bin\SharePointRestore.cmp file, and then click Open.

If the site that you are backing up or restoring is large, the process can take quite a while.

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