How to transfer custom features and solutions from one farm to another?

Question

Here is the problem. I've been given SharePoint 2010 farm with pretty huge web app, with large site collection, with custom features, some of which are paid and key required, which I don't have (namely NewsGator). And I have a task to move all this to different farm, to different db-server and to different domain.

I moved DBs, attached them, and even managed to install and activate most features with plain copying of "features" dir and running my ps script to install and enable them. Unfortunately that is not enough and something is still missing or can't get activated. I can't login into web app with errors in logs like "failed to create a control from assembly" like NewsGator and OfficeWebApps. Seems like it's not the way how they should be installed, yet I don't have much options since.. well.. keys are gone.

So my question is how can I transfer all this Features and Solutions to new server so it won't brake, and make it preferably in bulk?

Answer 1

If your custom solutions were delivered as .wsp files, you can export them from the old farm with the following PowerShell:

(Get-SPFarm).Solutions | ForEach-Object{$var = (Get-Location).Path + “\” + $_.Name; $_.SolutionFile.SaveAs($var)}  

You can install them in the new farm with Add-SPSolution and Install-SPSolution.

This approach won't fix any licensing issues with a product like NewsGator. Every 3rd Party Vendor has it's own limitations (e.g. a license bound to ServerName or FarmID) which can't be covered here.