How do I convert an instance of vbulletin to a new purchased license?

[handruin]

I'm looking for some help transitioning a vbulletin test forum into its own license.

Here is the scenario:

1. One owned vbulletin license for a forum is in production internal to our company (we’ll call it license “A”).
2. We used the option to make a hidden private development test forum (no production) under the compliant vbtest directory to see if we could make certain changes in our environment that would work for the organization...details not really important other than there is no code hacks involved; just an import of an existing phpbb board using impex.
3. This testvb has been requested to become its own new forum under a different domain name within our organization and will have no relation to the original license...
4. In order to comply with the licensing we purchased a second owned license for this domain (call this license “B”).

My question is...how can I convert the testvb board under license “A” so that it reflects the new license of license “B”? We've outlined changes and configurations in the database of the testvb (there are posts from a phpbb import) that we'd like to retain without having to do a new/clean install. Is it possible to convert the testvb license into the new license so that we can open the forum for production? We did it this way to do a proof of concept so that we were allowed to order the second license (which we’ve done). Any thoughts would be appreciated.

[Onimua]

Pretty easy to do actually.

Besides making a backup of you database, just switch the vBulletin files on the server. Meaning, in short, just upload and overwrite the vBulletin files from "A" with the files from "B" on the new server.

But since it's a new location, just upload all "B" vBulletin files in the new location, and edit config.php to point to the database that it uses.

I hope that isn't confusing; if so, let me know and I'll see if i can make it simpler.

[handruin]

Oh wow, that's fantastic Onimua; thanks for the info. I was afraid there were license references in the database so I wanted to check. I looked through several tables where I suspected my license numbers to be, but found nothing.

I believe I've understood what you meant, but just to be certainly let me recap:

1. Download vbulletin files from license "B".
2. Upload files like an install to new server/domain.
3. (in my case) copy license "A" database over to new server (license "b").
4. Edit config file of "license 'b'" to point at the new database copy (with username/password, etc).

So I should be good to go after that? Thanks for the info, that's a big help.

[Onimua]

If you look through the actual vBulletin files, you'll find the license information there.

Yep, you should be able to go through just like that. In case anything does go wrong, you'll have the backup of your database to start from, but with something like this it shouldn't be any trouble.