Upgrading default Fantastico oscommerce installation

[jeep11]

Installed standard oscommerce 2.2 plus Buy Safe via Fantastico Delux and want to upgrade to Osmax, have downloaded all of the files from website and wondered is it now simply a case of overwriting the default installation with the new files? Help appreciated!

[michael_s]

No. If you have not added any data or changes to the fantastico installed osCommerce, use fantastico to remove it. Then do a new install of osCMax, following the install instructions in the documentation here at osCMax.com

[jeep11]

Thanks for the swift reply, had a look at the instructions for installing oscmax, wow looks complicated all the database, mysql stuff?? I like the way the stock oscommerce just installed itself on my server, database and all so I think I'll stick with it and just add the available upgrades that are out there. I'm pretty sure I previously upgraded a copy of oscommerce 1.7 to osmax by just changing some files? I'm a total newbie with database stuff and would probably just screw up the installation and as I need a shop up and running fast I think I'll give it a miss this time.

[michael_s]

FYI the stock osCommerce did not install itself. Fantastico, a commercial product that includes osCommerce, installed it for you. To manually install osCommerce, you have to do all the same steps as outlined for osCMax.

No, you didn't upgrade just by changing some files, as the upgrade would also require making database changes.

Next, there has never been an osCommerce v1.7. There has been an osCMax 1.7, so if you are remembering anything, it is probably upgrading osCMax 1.7 to osCMax 2.0 (but that still requires more than just changing files).

Finally, installing osCMax is infinitely easier than hacking a standard osCommerce to have all its features, which is really the point of osCMax anyway...

[jeep11]

That's me told then! Hair splitting aside, whether it installed itself or the Fantastico programme did it, it's still a hell of lot less hassle!

[michael_s]

Maybe less hassle on the install, but not for any future mods you want to make. I guarantee, you will have many more problems trying to 'enhance' regular osCommerce.

The thirty minutes you save installing via fantastico guarantees hours of hassle and problems when you go to add mods that are already included by default in osCMax.

Look at it this way. Manual installation of osCMax, although it looks daunting, even for the least common denominator takes an hour, and you only ever have to do it one time. Adding even the simplest mod to osCommerce for a newbie can take several hours until you figure out what you are doing. Now, try adding 10, 20, 30 mods... A beginner will spend weeks...

Just trying to share the benefit of my experience, but hey, if you are like me, you will end up doing it the hard way the first time and lick your wounds later

[jeep11]

Ok, I'm going to give it a try............ I'll be sure to let you know if I make it through to other side!

[met00]

not one store that BIA has set up has used the affiliates module. But the fact that it's there isn't a problem, we just don't use it. On the other hand, the advantages of having about 10-12 modules that we do use already plugged in and ready to go was able to reduce our development time by months.

And yes, we do develop above and beyond on the basic osCMax module. From enhancements to the products database (we add things like product cost, internal model number, oversized product and special order flags, the family products contrib, etc) to additional reporting (since we have product costs we can generate monthly profit reports, etc.) we take osCMax and enhance it quite a bit, but the time savings from enhancing osCMax verses vanilla OSC is massive.

While it may seem like a great deal of work to "install" the product, it's worth every penny of time saved on the enhancement end of it, even if there are modules that you won't use added to osCMax.

Just my $0.02.

[chrisbarbers]

Hi Michael, sorry to jump on someone elses thread, but I have a slightly modded oscommerce shop, the mods I have are easy to recreate although some are covered by oscmax anyway, my question and I know this has been covered elsewhere with little glimmer of hope from what I saw, is can I run the sql file on my ms2.2 database and add the missing data tables/fields to it then upgrade to oscmax?

Also is there a php file available to do this, e.g. Chemo had a nice sql_install.php file included with his Ultimate SEO URLS contrib that added the necessary fields to the DB, does such a thing exist for oscmax?

[chrisbarbers]

Hello again, I saw another post about this and I am still struggling, I have finally got mysqldiff to create a file for taking my store to oscmax, but when I run the script I get an error saying that the default admin_id value is wrong, so I went through a pretty painful process of copying all the create table commands in the osmax.sql and copied those over the mysqldiff.sql versions, that worked but then I got a duplicate key error.

Should I select the oscmax db first in mysqldiff then the existing store or does it not matter?

I like my friend who is also suffering really need to make this work, I also have several hundred products in my store, and I would really like to not have to reenter, then least of which is because my wife who is doing the data entry will kill me