Upgrade Procedure

Upgrading a Kentico site is best done with "Base" Kentico applications. The Kentico Installation Manager will not upgrade a site if it's not a WebApp, and having custom code and modules runs the risk of errors during upgrade.

Likewise, after upgrade, it's best to also start with a fresh Kentico 13 installation to avoid issues with post-upgrade processing and such.

Get a Base Kentico Solution pointing to your site

1. Use the Kentico 12 Installer to install a Kentico Xperience 12 MVC Site with a database (you can use localdb)
2. Hotfix that new site to the hotfix that matches the version your site is on.
3. Replace the Connection string and CMSHashSalt values in the web.config with your site's settings
4. Point your IIS to the fresh kentico site CMS folder
5. Run your site (should run)

Upgrade

1. Run the Kentico Xperience 13 Installation Manager
2. Register your site (pointing to the Base Kentico Solution)
3. Upgrade the site to Version 13 (back up site and database)

Run for first Time with Base Kentico Xperience 13

1. Use the Kentico 13 Installer to install a Kentico Xperience 13 Solution (no database needed this time)
2. Copy your connection string and CMSHashSalt over to this new Base Kentico Xperience 13 Solution
3. Set the SQL COnnection timeout to a very high number (60000) so no sql timeouts during first-run upgrade operations
4. Set the Compliation Debug = true so there are no request timeouts during first-run upgrade operations
5. Point your IIS to the new base solution
6. Run the site (this may take a while)

Hotfix

1. Register your Kentico 13 Installation Manager to the new Base 13 Solution that you just ran.
2. Run the Hotfix on it and hotfix to either the latest version (if using the HBS KX13 Baseline, may want to hotfix to it's latest hotfix version, then once set up hotfix the entire solution again). Be sure to backup site and database during this.
3. Run the admin once more.

Start Refactoring / Adding your MVC Solution

At this point, you have a base Kentico Xperience 13 Admin WebApp, and you can start slowly adding in your customizations, making sure they are compatible as you go.

You should use the base MVC Site, or the Baseline, and start building your site.