Hello, I have a forum that I am considering transferring over from UBB (currently version 6.7.3) to VBulletin so that we can handle more traffic and also use the VBSEO plugin for SEO-friendly URL's and better indexing (we have just over 200 pages indexed even though there are at least 2,000 pages on the forum). We have over 100 solid forum members that are involved in discussions there, so we want to make the transition simple for the current members while allowing more users to be on the forum simultaneously. Is this a good idea? Has anyone transferred a forum over to a different software? If so, what difficulties did you face?
Vbulletin makes a script called Impex. You can use that script to convert the database over to VB. This is what I did when I converted a SMF forum to VB. Lets say that you have your forum installed to a /forum folder. I installed VB to a /forums folder - notice the "S" at the end. Converted the database from smf to vb, made the changes that I wanted. Renamed the old /forum folder to /forumold and changed /forums to /forum - then edited the config file to reflect the new path on the server. Also, be sure the change the permissions on the /forumold folder so the public can not access it. The forum was down maybe a whole 2 - 3 minutes. All members then had to reset their passwords.
In general you plan is a good idea, though you have a chicken and egg problem. You need to convert the current software to vBulletin using IMPEX but you have to buy it before you can download the IMPEX conversion script. The second point is that you are unlikely to transition without ANY "gotchas" so you should expect that some disruption will occur. Maybe a "heads up" to your members before you make the move. It should take only a couple of hours to complete the whole task and if you can do it in your "off hours".