Upgrading to Business Contact Manager 2010 Beta

Hi! I’m Vinit Jain, a tester in the Business Contact Manager group. Since we released the Beta, many customers have downloaded the product and asked about upgrading the older versions of BCM ( for instance BCM 2007) to the 2010 version. This post explains step-by-step upgrade process.

There are few important things you should know before starting the upgrade process. First, you don’t need to uninstall previous versions of BCM as the new version will automatically upgrade it for you. Second, if you have more than one BCM clients connected to a shared database, you will have to upgrade BCM on all the machines. Finally, if you are upgrading BCM clients that access database located on the remote machine, upgrade database on the server machine first as you will need to have upgraded database ready before BCM 2010 could connect.

The first scenario explains how to upgrade BCM on a machine that has previous version of BCM installed. The second scenario explains process to upgrade BCM database on a server (using BCM Database Tool) which does not have BCM installed.

Upgrading BCM on Standalone (Client) Machines

1. Launch BCM setup, and then push the Install Now button on the setup wizard. BCM will show:

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2. Launch Outlook and the BCM First Use wizard will pop up

3. Select Custom, then Connect to a Local Database:

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4. The wizard will show the list of databases. Databases that cannot be upgraded (perhaps because their locales don’t match) are shown greyed out but cannot be selected. Select the database you’d like to upgrade, and hit Connect:

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5. Follow the instructions to finish the database upgrade. Should be clear sailing from here!

Upgrading BCM Database on Remote Machine (Using BCM Database Tool)

When you have a dedicated computer (server) without Office and BCM installed hosting a previous version of BCM database, you’ll need to upgrade the database to BCM 2010 format. You’ll be required to back up your database, create a new one, and then restore the backup to the new database. All of this can be accomplished with the Database Tool:

1. Download and install Database Admin tool on the server machine

2. Launch the Database Admin tool, select Backup a Database, select the database you want to backup, and let the Tool do its work:

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3. After you‘re done backing up your database, you’ll be brought back to the first screen of the wizard Tool. This time, select Create a new database and follow the instructions:

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4. Finally, again from the first screen, select Restore a database, select the backup file created in step 2 and follow the instructions:

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5. Now the clients can launch outlook, select Connect to a Remote Database and follow the instructions to connect to the now created new BCM 2010 remote database.

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That’s it!

Remember that in a shared database environment all versions of BCM – whether Office 2010 clients or the remote database on the server – must have the same version. But once you’ve upgraded, each client can connect to the now-upgraded remote database.

Thanks, and do let me know if this clarifies things!

-Vinit Jain