Upgrading From SQL Compact DB to SQL Express (LocalDB)

As of version 7.2.107.4 (Jan 2020) of lansweeper it was the last to support sql compact (express) as it was removed in version 7.2.108.6.  Doing a simple double click upgrade is not possible, and the process for doing the migration is pretty straight forward.  

I have a video here of the whole migration.

If your running a version lower then 7.2.108.6 you need to upgrade to 7.2.108.6.  You can see your version of lansweeper after you login by going to Configuration -> Your Lansweeper License

Before you start make a backup of your Lansweeper data.  To do that in my documents folders I created two folders labelled 721086 and 8013014.  In 721086 with the previous versions of lansweeper (in my case 721054) just in case you have to recover, and repeat the process for your upgrade to version 8013014.  In there after stopping the Lansweeper Server and IIS Express Services

Go to your Lansweeper program directory (typically C:\Programs (x86)\Lansweeper) and backup 2 Folders SQLData and Key.  Key has your encryption key (if enabled) and SQLData has your SQL COMPACT and SQL Express databases (SQL Express only after you have upgraded to version 7.2.108.6)

You can read about the entire process from this Lansweeper KB
https://www.lansweeper.com/knowledgebase/backing-up-your-installation/

Lansweeper has done a great job automating this, after you upgrade to version 7.2.108.6 your database will be converted, it takes about 5 minutes.  Once the installer has finished you will see a new service called Lansweeper LocalDB Service.

To upgrade to version 8 download the lastest version of Lansweeper https://www.lansweeper.com/update-lansweeper/ and repeat the steps from the beginning of the blog but save the SQLDATA and Key to the 8013014 directory.  Once done you will be on the latest version of lansweeper (at the time of this post).  The version of SQL Express Lansweeper is using is version 2014.

If you want to upgrade the database you can follow this KB from Lansweeper, https://www.lansweeper.com/knowledgebase/moving-your-database-from-sql-compact-to-sql-server/

***UPDATE***

After this update I had an issue with email tickets being 10 tickets lower then the last Lansweeper ticket. To fix the issue I reset the ticket id counter as described in https://www.lansweeper.com/knowledgebase/resetting-the-ticket-id-counter/

The section we want to follow is the "Resetting the ticket ID counter if you are using SQL LocalDB or SQL Server" and before you go ahead and do that be sure to take a backup of your Lansweeper LocalDB https://www.lansweeper.com/knowledgebase/backing-up-your-installation/#heading2

I will be doing a post about doing this later.

Reference

https://www.lansweeper.com/knowledgebase/sql-compact-deprecated/
https://www.lansweeper.com/knowledgebase/sql-compact-deprecated/#heading2
https://www.lansweeper.com/news/installing-lansweeper-end-of-support-for-sql-compact/
https://www.lansweeper.com/knowledgebase/moving-your-database-from-sql-compact-to-sql-server/
https://www.lansweeper.com/knowledgebase/resetting-the-ticket-id-counter/