This document should be used as a reference, not a step by step guide. Upgrading will largely depend on what version of Umbraco you are currently running, what packages you have installed and the many
The standard upgrade instructions still apply to this process as well.
It is critical that you back up your website and database before upgrading. There are database changes made during installation and you cannot revert an Umbraco 7 database to an Umbraco 6 database.
Umbraco 7 is built on .Net 4.5 and your development environment will require this version installed in order to operate. Visual Studio users may require 2012 or higher.
Umbraco 7 requires browsers with proper HTML 5 support, these include Chrome, Firefox, IE10+
Before you upgrade be sure to read the list of breaking changes. This is especially recommended if you have removed or modified code in the core or if one of these breaking changes directly affects your installation.
See the list of breaking changes for more details.
It is recommended to rebuild all Examine indexes after completing the upgrade.
You should re-generate the XML cache. This can be done by following the prompts when visiting the following URL:
your-domain.com/umbraco/dialogs/republish.aspx?xml=true
It is recommended that you use a Diff tool to compare the configuration file changes with your own current configuration files.
/web.config updates
Details are listed here: https://issues.umbraco.org/issue/U4-2900
You will need to compare the new Umbraco 7 web.config with your current web.config. Here is a quick reference of what needs to change:
Remove the section name="BaseRestExtensions" section
Remove the section name="FileSystemProviders" section
Remove the sectionGroup name="system.web.webPages.razor" section
Remove the <FileSystemProviders> element
Remove the BaseRestExtensions element
Remove the add key="umbracoUseMediumTrust" element
Remove the system.web.extensions element
Removes the xhtmlConformance element
Remove the system.codedom element
Remove the compilation assemblies, /compilation
Remove the system.web.webPages.razor element
New: sectionGroup name="umbracoConfiguration" section
New: umbracoConfiguration element
Ensure that the targetFramework="4.5" is added to the httpRuntime element
Add add key="ValidationSettings:UnobtrusiveValidationMode" value="None" to the appSettings element
/config/clientdependency.config changes
remove add name="CanvasProvider" element
/views/web.config updates
New macroscripts/web.config
config/umbracoSettings.config
Umbraco is now shipped with minimal settings but the full settings are still available
umbracoSettings is now a true ASP.NET configuration section https://issues.umbraco.org/issue/U4-58
Remove the EnableCanvasEditing element
Remove the webservices element
Removed xsltExtensions.config
/config/applications.config and /config/trees.config have some icon paths and names updated. You need to merge the new changes into your existing config files.
/config/tinyMceConfig.config
The inlinepopups is compatible and supported in Umbraco 7. You need to remove these elements: plugin loadOnFrontend="true", inlinepopups/plugin;
The plugins element that is shipped with Umbraco 7 looks like this:
You need to merge the changes from the new tinyMceConfig file into yours. The command elements that have changed are: JustifyCenter, JustifyLeft, JustifyRight, JustifyFull, umbracomacro, umbracoembed, mceImage, subscript, superscript, styleselect
Remove the command: mceSpellCheck
/config/dashboard.config
You need to merge the changes from the new dashboard.config into yours. Some of the original dashboard entries that were shipped with Umbraco 6 have been replaced or removed.
Umbraco 7+ will no longer support medium trust environments. There are now some assemblies used in the core that do not support medium trust but are used extensively. Plugin scanning now also allows for scanning Umbraco's internal types which requires full trust.
Content, Media, Members, and Data Type trees will no longer raise the legacy tree events (based on BaseTree). It is recommended to change all tree event handlers to use the new tree events that fire for every tree in Umbraco including legacy trees. The new tree events are static events and are found in the class Umbraco.Web.Trees.TreeControllerBase:
MenuRendering
RootNodeRendering
TreeNodesRendering
The Content, Media, Member, and Data Type editors have been re-created and are solely using the new Umbraco Services data layer. This means that operations performed in the backoffice will no longer raise the legacy business logic events (for example, events based on umbraco.cms.businesslogic.web.Document). It is recommended to change your event handlers to subscribe to the new Services data layer events. These are static events and are found in the services. For example: Umbraco.Core.Services.ContentService.Saved.
Legacy property editors (pre-Umbraco 7) will not work with Umbraco 7. During the upgrade installation process, Umbraco will generate a report showing you which legacy property editors are installed. These will all be converted to a readonly Label property editor. No data loss will occur but you'll need to re-assign your existing data types to use a new compatible Umbraco 7 property editor.
Most Umbraco core property editors shipped will be mapped to their equivalent Umbraco 7 editors. The Image cropper editor has not been completed for v7.0.
Since the Related Links property is an advanced property editor, the data format has changed from XML to JSON. This should not have any effect when retrieving the data from razor. If you are outputting Related Links data with XSLT you will need to update your XSLT snippet. Making use of the new library method umbraco.library:JsonToXml and taking into account that the xml structure has also slightly changed.
One of the database changes made in Umbraco 7 is the change of referencing a property editor from a GUID to a string alias. In order to map a legacy property editor to a new Umbraco 7 version you can add your custom "GUID -> Alias" map during application startup. To do this you would add your map using this method: Umbraco.Core.PropertyEditors.LegacyPropertyEditorIdToAliasConverter.CreateMap
Legacy parameter editors (pre-Umbraco 7) will not work with Umbraco 7. If Umbraco detects legacy parameter editor aliases that do not map to a Umbraco 7 parameter editor it will render a textbox in its place. You will need to update your macros to use a compatible Umbraco 7 parameter editor as those that aren't supported.
Previously, parameter editors were registered in an Umbraco database table: cmsMacroPropertyType which no longer exists. Parameter editors in Umbraco 7 are plugins like property editors. During the Umbraco 7 upgrade installation process it will update the new cmsMacroProperty.editorAlias column with the previous parameter editor alias. During this process it will look into the Umbraco.Core.PropertyEditors.LegacyParameterEditorAliasConverter for a map between a legacy alias to a new Umbraco 7 alias.
Custom legacy parameters can be mapped to new Umbraco 7 parameter editor aliases during installation. This can be done by modifying the mapping during application startup using this method: Umbraco.Core.PropertyEditors.LegacyParameterEditorAliasConverter.CreateMap.
All database changes will be taken care of during the upgrade installation process.
For database change details see (including all child tasks):
See above for the database updates made for better tag support.
Tags can now be assigned to a nodes property and not only a node
Multiple tag controls can exist on one page with different data
The legacy API does not support this, the legacy API will effectively, add/update/remove tags for the first property found for the document that is assigned a tag property editor.
There is a new ITagService that can be used to query tags
Querying for tags in a view (front-end) can be done via the new TagQuery class which is exposed from the UmbracoHelper. For example: @Umbraco.TagQuery.GetTagsForProperty
You should check with the package creator for all installed packages to ensure they are compatible with Umbraco 7.
We see common errors that we cannot fix for you, but we do have recommendations you can follow to fix them:
The TypeFinder has been deprecated since 4.10 and is now found under Umbraco.Core.TypeFinder.
While you need to have JavaScript inside menu actions to trigger a response, it is highly recommended that you use the recommended UmbClientMgr methods. You should not try to override parent.right.document and similar tricks to get to the right-hand frame.
If you have a webforms page, it is recommended to use the built-in ASP.NET controls to render panels, properties and so on. If you use the raw HTML or try to style it to match the backoffice, you will get out of sync. Follow the guidelines set by Umbraco's internal editors and use the ASP.NET custom controls for UI.