News

Microsoft Adds SharePoint 2010 Sites Support to Migration Tool

• By Kurt Mackie
• October 07, 2019

Recent updates to Microsoft's SharePoint Server product include an updated diagnostic tool for assessing SharePoint Server 2019 and SharePoint Server 2016 environments, and a new feature in the SharePoint Server migration tool.

On the migration side, Microsoft last week announced that the SharePoint Migration Tool's ability to move SharePoint Server 2010 sites or file shares to SharePoint Online had reached the "general availability" stage.

General availability means that the solution, currently at version 3.2.114.0, is deemed ready for production use by organizations. Previously, the tool just supported migrating SharePoint Server 2013 sites to SharePoint Online. The updated tool can move content to three Office 365 services, including SharePoint Online, OneDrive and Microsoft Teams.

The ability to move SharePoint Server 2010 sites is arriving in the nick of time. SharePoint Server 2010 Service Pack 2 will be exiting its "extended support" phase on Oct. 13, 2020. It'll be an "unsupported product" after that date, which means that it won't get any more free security patches from Microsoft, making it potentially more risky to use.  

Microsoft seems to have broadened what the SharePoint Migration Tool can move. For instance, it can move files, folders, list items and Web Parts. It also now lets users create subfolder destinations when moving Teams channels, the announcement, explained.

However, the tool can only move "out of the box" SharePoint sites. In other words, "sites that do not use any coding or 3rd party tools can be migrated," Microsoft's "Supported Features" document explained.

The SharePoint Migration Tool is a command-line executable file that scans server farms and indicates any "issues with data" before a migration to SharePoint Online. It'll create a report that will point users to articles to fix the discovered issues, according to Microsoft's "Overview and Download" document.

On Premise Diagnostic Tool
Another command-line tool recently updated for SharePoint Server 2019 and SharePoint Server 2016 environments is the "On Premise Diagnostic Tool" (OPT), which appears to be newly released at version 2, per a Friday Microsoft announcement.

There may be different versions of the OPT tool available, Microsoft's GitHub install instructions explained. However, if the second digit of the version number is a "1," then it's considered to be a "code-signed release," and it's ready for use. If the second digit is a "0," then it indicates a "development release" for testing. The tool has to be manually installed. Users can opt into sharing the diagnostics with Microsoft, if wanted.

The OPT tool checks for various SharePoint 2019 and SharePoint 2016 administrative scenarios, including patch support status, Active Directory imports, e-mail lists and timer jobs. It also checks SQL query performance, user profile issues and search issues. There's also support for assessing setup and upgrade details, such as checking for "missing features in the content databases."

Page Diagnostics Tool
If that weren't enough, Microsoft announced last month that it had released an updated Page Diagnostics Tool. This browser-based tool is just available for SharePoint Online users.

The Page Diagnostics Tool will indicate possible optimizations to consider for both "modern" and "classic" pages when using the SharePoint Online service.