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I have several customers looking to complete their upgrade from CRM 3.0 to 4.0, and they’re looking for advice on the steps they should follow both before and during the actual upgrade process. First, I suggest running two or more successful test upgrades before running the live upgrade. During this time, customers should write test cases for the critical functions they perform within CRM. After each upgrade, users should run through those test cases to make sure everything is working as expected.
Once customers are ready to upgrade, here are my suggested steps, broken out into work that can be done prior to the upgrade downtime and the work that needs to be done during the downtime for the upgrade. The goal is to minimize your downtime by doing certain tasks ahead of the actual upgrade.
Note: Always back up the existing CRM 3.0 database before adding a customization or moving to a new version of CRM.
1. Upgrade SQL databases to SQL 2005 SP2 (if not already done) 2. Upgrade SQL Reporting Services web sites to SQL 2005 SP2 (if not already done). Upgrade the reporting service database with SP2 script. 3. Verify the rights of the user running the upgrade a. Must have admin rights on computer, admin rights in SQL Reporting Services and server admin on SQL Server b. Must be able to create a security group within the OU where the 4 3.0 groups exist c. Must be in the same domain as the servers where the upgrade is run d. Must be a member of the system administrator role in CRM 4. Install Server Pre-requisites ahead of time a. SQL Reporting Services Report Viewer (2.0.50727) b. XML Core Services (6.0.3883) c. .NET Framework 3.0 (3.0.4506.30) d. SQL Native Client (9.0.2047) e. Microsoft Application Error Reporting Tool 5. Install Email Router ahead of upgrade and start configuration (completed after upgrade) a. If using forward mailbox, assure that you can access that mailbox via Outlook Web Access b. Assure that WebDAV is enabled on the Exchange server where the mailbox is located c. Configure outbound to use SMTP server d. Once you finish configuring the router, turn the service off until the upgrade is completed 6. Review the following KB article (949256) for CRM 4.0 hotfix information, and download any server hotfix packages and add the installation to your upgrade steps 7. If using AutoUpdate for clients (requires admin rights on clients), create web directory for client patches and store the client patch .exes in that folder 8. Save off backup copy of all custom report .rdl files 9. Delete all CRM 3.0 out of the box reports not being used (you'll get another copy of the report in 4.0) 10. Export all your customizations for reference purposes (cannot be upgraded outside of the server upgrade process) 11. Review all custom entities to make sure the primary entity does not have NULL values. If it does, run a SQL script to update values to ‘’ or some value 12. Download the CRM 4.0 Diag Tool so it's ready to be used in the event of errors received on CRM 4.0 13. If using an Internet Facing Deployment, review KB article 948779 and download IFD Configuration Tool 14. Review the following KB articles prior to upgrade 946590, 947061, 947997
1. Upgrade SQL databases to SQL 2005 SP2 (if not already done)
2. Upgrade SQL Reporting Services web sites to SQL 2005 SP2 (if not already done). Upgrade the reporting service database with SP2 script.
3. Verify the rights of the user running the upgrade
a. Must have admin rights on computer, admin rights in SQL Reporting Services and server admin on SQL Server
b. Must be able to create a security group within the OU where the 4 3.0 groups exist
c. Must be in the same domain as the servers where the upgrade is run
d. Must be a member of the system administrator role in CRM
4. Install Server Pre-requisites ahead of time
a. SQL Reporting Services Report Viewer (2.0.50727)
b. XML Core Services (6.0.3883)
c. .NET Framework 3.0 (3.0.4506.30)
d. SQL Native Client (9.0.2047)
e. Microsoft Application Error Reporting Tool
5. Install Email Router ahead of upgrade and start configuration (completed after upgrade)
a. If using forward mailbox, assure that you can access that mailbox via Outlook Web Access
b. Assure that WebDAV is enabled on the Exchange server where the mailbox is located
c. Configure outbound to use SMTP server
d. Once you finish configuring the router, turn the service off until the upgrade is completed
6. Review the following KB article (949256) for CRM 4.0 hotfix information, and download any server hotfix packages and add the installation to your upgrade steps
7. If using AutoUpdate for clients (requires admin rights on clients), create web directory for client patches and store the client patch .exes in that folder
8. Save off backup copy of all custom report .rdl files
9. Delete all CRM 3.0 out of the box reports not being used (you'll get another copy of the report in 4.0)
10. Export all your customizations for reference purposes (cannot be upgraded outside of the server upgrade process)
11. Review all custom entities to make sure the primary entity does not have NULL values. If it does, run a SQL script to update values to ‘’ or some value
12. Download the CRM 4.0 Diag Tool so it's ready to be used in the event of errors received on CRM 4.0
13. If using an Internet Facing Deployment, review KB article 948779 and download IFD Configuration Tool
14. Review the following KB articles prior to upgrade 946590, 947061, 947997
The following steps should be completed within the downtime needed for the upgrade.
1. If running SQL replication, disable SQL replication 2. Turn off IIS on the web servers 3. Back up [CompanyName]_MSCRM and [CompanyName]_METABASE databases 4. Delete the t_update_queueitem trigger on the QueueItemBase table (to be fixed in a forthcoming hotfix - 948172) 5. Launch the upgrade a. Be sure to connect to the Internet to update installation files. If you don’t have Internet access on that machine, go to KB 948917 and following the links to download the installation files and bring them over to the server. b. Install Visual C++ runtime c. Enter your 4.0 server keys d. Choose a base currency e. Run the upgrade 6. Restart the web server 7. Complete the registration of the CRM 4.0 product 8. If you have additional web servers, upgrade CRM on those web servers 8. Complete the configuration of the Email Router by choosing the Deployment and testing the configuration 9. Apply all server hotfixes 10. If using AutoUpdate, run configurator tool to publish client hotfixes to clients 11. If Internet Facing Deployment, install the SQL Reporting Services Data Connector 12. If Internet Facing Deployment, run the IFD Configuration Tool 13. In SRS Report Manager, recreate any custom data sources under the 4.0 folder 14. Re-upload all CRM 4.0 reports that contained sub-reports and point the sub-reports to the appropriate parent report 15. Copy over any new customizations made on development 4.0 environments 16. Install the online and offline client (if used) for testing purposes 17. Test all functionality from Outlook and the web client
1. If running SQL replication, disable SQL replication
2. Turn off IIS on the web servers
3. Back up [CompanyName]_MSCRM and [CompanyName]_METABASE databases
4. Delete the t_update_queueitem trigger on the QueueItemBase table (to be fixed in a forthcoming hotfix - 948172)
5. Launch the upgrade
a. Be sure to connect to the Internet to update installation files. If you don’t have Internet access on that machine, go to KB 948917 and following the links to download the installation files and bring them over to the server.
b. Install Visual C++ runtime
c. Enter your 4.0 server keys
d. Choose a base currency
e. Run the upgrade
6. Restart the web server
7. Complete the registration of the CRM 4.0 product
8. If you have additional web servers, upgrade CRM on those web servers
8. Complete the configuration of the Email Router by choosing the Deployment and testing the configuration
9. Apply all server hotfixes
10. If using AutoUpdate, run configurator tool to publish client hotfixes to clients
11. If Internet Facing Deployment, install the SQL Reporting Services Data Connector
12. If Internet Facing Deployment, run the IFD Configuration Tool
13. In SRS Report Manager, recreate any custom data sources under the 4.0 folder
14. Re-upload all CRM 4.0 reports that contained sub-reports and point the sub-reports to the appropriate parent report
15. Copy over any new customizations made on development 4.0 environments
16. Install the online and offline client (if used) for testing purposes
17. Test all functionality from Outlook and the web client
Once the final upgrade is completed, run through the test cases to make sure everything is working as you expected. If you are using the Desktop/Online Outlook client, you need to upgrade your clients right away after the upgrade of the server so they can access CRM functionality. If you are using the Laptop/Offline Outlook client, your users can remain offline until they are ready to upgrade to CRM 4.0.
Now you’re done and can enjoy the new features of CRM 4.0!
Eric Newell
Over at the CRM Team Blog, they posted a very detailed list of upgrade steps from CRM 3 to CRM 4. 
Hi ,
i am littile bit confuse with Keys.
To upgrage from MSCRM 3.0 to 4.0.
how many keys will be needed?Need to take new keys?MSCRM 3.0 user licence can work?
I have 55 user licence in MSCRM 3.0.
Thanxs
Danish
When it is exposed dover internet through IFD, still the users login is validated agaist active directory?
we are experiencing an issue when trying to upgrade our 3.0 install of crm, to 4.0.
"The unique constraints in the Microsoft Dynamics CRM database are not consistent with Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 unique constraints."
the error report reports of unique constraints in tables we do not have in our database.
ex: 07:40:17| Error| Remark: deleted unique constraint on column 07:40:17| Error| tablename: attributename 07:40:17| Error| columnname: stringmap
If anyone reads this, and have some anwers, please reply!
When upgrading to CRM 4.0, you will need a new license key. You would not need any additional licenses than you needed in CRM 4.0. The server/client keys are combined on 4.0, so it's just one key that's entered. If you're enrolled in Volume Licensing, you should receive your new key, or you can go to the Licensing website to download the media with your key embedded.
Eric Newell [MSFT]
We have to upgrade to CRM 4.0 but we need to know two information about CRM 4.0 Rollup1:
- Is it possible to pre-filter lookup on CRM 4.0?
- Is it possible to update data importing from excel?
When rollup 1 will be available?
Thank you
Giacinta
Giacinta -
Update Rollup 1 will be forthcoming, but dates have not been released at this time. Update Rollup 1 isn't a feature release - it's a collection of bug fixes.
There isn't out of the box functionality for pre-filtering lookups, although ISVs are working on a supported method for doing so. Also, I wouldn't expect the functionality for updating data imported from Excel to appear unless it would be done as a feature pack. I'm not aware of any such plans at this time.
Prabhu - yes, an Active Directory account is still required and the login is validated against Active Directory in CRM 4.0 using IFD.
I am upgrading from CRM 3 to CRM4; I have two seperate CRM 3 envirnoment, using the same SQL instance. I purchased the 'non' enterprise version of CRM 4. After running the upgrade on the second CRM 3 envinroment, I can only see the first CRM envinroment. So I can't see the second organization but when I look at the instances in SQL the new DB is there. Could this be a licensing issue?
Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks
Julie
Julie -
The Professional license for CRM allows for only one organization in CRM. You would need to upgrade to the Enterprise license to see both 4.0 organizations in the same environment.
Thanks,
Hello,
When attempting to upgrade our crm3.0 environment to crm4.0 I am receiving the warning/error message at the system requirements section (see below). It will not let me proceed. Any ideas?
Timeout expired. The timeout period elapsed prior to completion of the operation or the server is not responding.
Setup has detected unprocessed events pending in the existing Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 system. We recommend that you exit Setup and give the workflow service enough time to process these events. If you continue, all such unprocessed events will be lost.
Finished my upgrade successfully. I'd add a few things...
1. Remove Enhanced Security config app from the crm server.
2. Install and run the IFD, even if you are using just an "on premise" setup. I could get the browser to connect, but couldn't get the outlook client to connect until I ran this.
3. Immediately check to see if the system jobs/workflows are running, and if not, download and run MS's "DeploymentConfigTool" (seperate download) so that you can get the right setings in your MSCRM_CONFIG DB. You'd better specify the port though (and oversight by the documentation in KB 950416), otherwise it won't work.
4. Prior to the upgrade, completely zero out any workflows that may be processing. Even with that set, it still took my upgrade 6 hours to run. Failed the first time because our initial CRM 3.0 consultant set up some "benign" workflows that hit every record in the db. Not good.
5. Hope that you didn't have c360 installed. Congratulate your self if you didn't. If you did, try to successfully run their 2 seperate tools to clean up all of their garbage.
There is more stuff, but that's off the top of my head.
We have issue during upgrade, following error log shown:
14:56:15| Info| The following unique constraints are not consistent with those in the Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 unique constraints:
14:56:15| Error| remark: deleted unique constraint on column
14:56:15| Error| tablename: langid
14:56:15| Error| columnname: stringmap
14:56:15| Error|
14:56:15| Error| columnname: stringmapbit
14:56:15| Error| tablename: organizationid
14:56:15| Error| The unique constraints in the Microsoft Dynamics CRM database are not consistent with Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 unique constraints.
14:56:15| Error| Check SqlUniqueConstraintValidator : Failure: The unique constraints in the Microsoft Dynamics CRM database are not consistent with Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 unique constraints.
Anyone know to solve it? Please help.
After upgrading to CRM4 and FINALLY getting everything to work (reports in particular were difficult again), I am unable to add any new users to the CRM system. When I put in the new user's username and hit tab, all fields are populated with information from Active Directory. When I try and save the user in the CRM system, I get an error message saying invalid domain logon...select another one and try again. Any ideas?
I was told by Microsoft to re-install crm 3 msdn version to the crm 3 spla licenced version in order to apply the spla licence.
Is it possible to upgrade to MS CRM 4 with spla licence from a crm 3 msdn installation the same way as described above?