I often get this question- “How can I move ChurchInfo from one server to another?” Fortunately, the process for moving ChurchInfo is pretty easy:
– Use phpMyAdmin to back up the entire database to a sql file
– Copy the entire file structure under the churchinfo directory to the new server
– Use phpMyAdmin on the destination to create the ChurchInfo database, populate it using the back-up file rather than running SQL/Install.sql
– Edit the file Include/Config.php on the destination to establish the database connection on the new server
– Log into ChurchInfo on the new server
The only tricky step is editing Include/Config.php. Hosting services tend to have different and incompatible rules about how databases and database users are named, and the database host may be different from “localhost”.
This process transfers everything so all the same logins will still work on the new server.
The nature of the servers does not matter as long as Include/Config.php contains the necessary database connection information. For my own church I frequently bring the database back to a PC running xampp to try things that I would not try on the active server.