Need help installing vB forum

[Athani]

A friend of mine is admin of an invisionfree forum, www.mtgcreationstation.com (I'm global moderator there), and we really want to move our community to a better vB forum, which has a lot of features that we need.

Problem is, neither of us has any knowledge about vB, or more specifically: How to buy and install a vB forum. We realize that this could be a problem, and that's why I'm asking here for help.

If anyone has the time and generosity to help us with this, we'll be very grateful.

Thanks in advance for any responses. :)

[Biggles LLB]

A friend of mine is admin of an invisionfree forum, www.mtgcreationstation.com (I'm global moderator there), and we really want to move our community to a better vB forum, which has a lot of features that we need.

Problem is, neither of us has any knowledge about vB, or more specifically: How to buy and install a vB forum. We realize that this could be a problem, and that's why I'm asking here for help.

If anyone has the time and generosity to help us with this, we'll be very grateful.

Thanks in advance for any responses. :)Hi Athani.

You are certainly in the right place here so I'll step up first to say that there is a button at the top of the page marked 'Purchase vBulletin'. I've never used it but I presume you can buy vB through that [just checked it - it's a link to vB.com]. I took a peek at your current site - suggest you buy the full license if you can raise the money. The lease deal is pretty expensive if you are in it for the long term.

As for setting it up, you can have a go yourself (some say it's easy) or you can ask others to do it for you. Some will charge you a modest fee to do so and others will try to rip you off (no names, no pack drill).

As a newcomer myself, I am far from expert, but some of the guys and gals on here are pretty darn clued up, I can tell you. And some are kind and very generous. If I can help out here and there, I'd be happy to do so. I would not be prepared to do the initial set up, but I've managed to find my way around the Admin Control Panel of vB quite well. Contact me at mike@education-issues.org or through a PM on here.

I can say with conviction that the vB software (which you download, btw) is great once it's all up and running. Good luck, whatever your decision may be.

Biggles LLB :cool:

[Peggy]

A friend of mine is admin of an invisionfree forum, www.mtgcreationstation.com (http://www.mtgcreationstation.com) (I'm global moderator there), and we really want to move our community to a better vB forum, which has a lot of features that we need.

Problem is, neither of us has any knowledge about vB, or more specifically: How to buy and install a vB forum. We realize that this could be a problem, and that's why I'm asking here for help.

If anyone has the time and generosity to help us with this, we'll be very grateful.

Thanks in advance for any responses. :)

Athani, when you purchase vB, it comes with an install instruction manual, which is very detailed. You just have to read it closely. I think that the people that write these manuals forget that they were once new, and that some of us (myself included) aren't as knowlegeable as they now are.
That being said... read the manual step-by-step very carefully and if you get stumped, try NOT to get frustrated! (I'm a fine one to talk) Just remain calm and post your question in the basic vBulletin help forum here and I'm sure someone will help.

Good luck and welcome to the world of vBulletin!

[John]

1 - Purchase vB
2 - Upload appropriate files to webspace
3 - create MySQL db
4 - amend includes/config.php.new with your MySQL dB databasename, username, password - rename to config.php and upload
5 - point your browser to the install.php page
6 - follow the onscreen instructions and you are done.

If you then want to migrate all the threads and posts from your Invision forum to your new vB one, you will need to obtain the ImpEx script from the vB download area and run that. This will bring all your posts, threads, users et al from IPB to vB.

How's that for a brief summary...?

[Biggles LLB]

Hmmm ... '3 - create MySQL db' ... that's where I ran into trouble, John. Not as easy-peasy as you experts make it out to be. Not that I'm saying it's hard. But you do need to know a bit about what you are doing. Athani and his mates may well know enough, though I certainly didn't. :(

BTW, John, did you get my PM about PP? Or are you just too busy to reply?

Biggles

[John]

OK, I take your point - but in Athani's case - he/she has used IPB prior to using vB, and therefore it is safe(ish) to assume prior knowledge of having to create and use a MySQL dB.

However, if this is not the case; @Athani: please let us know what your Webhost account uses for the management of its databases. We can then advise how to go about setting up the MySQL dB.

[Biggles LLB]

Thanks for that John.

See Athani, we're all nice peeps on here and everyone without exception is ready to help out new chums. Why don't ya go and sort out the vB software? :)

Does everyone here agree that it's best to buy rather than to lease the license? :confused:

Biggles LLB

[Peggy]

absolutely. only time to lease a license is
1. when you can't come up with the purchase price
2. when you're not sure if the forum is going to fly and would rather test-drive it

[Athani]

Wow, thanks for all the responses! :)

Some of you are talking about somewhat advanced stuff (MySQL and such), and I, for one, have no clue about things like that. The forum me and my friends have now is just a simple remotely hosted free board (www.invisionfree.com), where you sign up by only giving your email address and name of the forum. So you could say that we have no knowledge of advanced things like MySQL bd...

But hopefully that will not be a problem, as I've come in contact with another friend of mine who's generously agreed to help us out, with buying the licence and installing the forum and stuff like that. But if further problems arise I'll be sure to come here and contact you guys again, because you seem like a nice and helpful bunch of people. :D

[John]

Glad you found someone who can install vB for you. Do let us all know when you have your new forum up and running.

[spongebob]

well i dont know if this will help but this is what i did. i purchased vbulletin and then purchsed server space from siteground. after that i asked site ground to install vbulletin and they did for free. it took about an hour from start to finish.

and now i have a site i know very little on how to run. lol.

but im here trying to learn. :)

[Peggy]

Wow, thanks for all the responses! :)

Some of you are talking about somewhat advanced stuff (MySQL and such), and I, for one, have no clue about things like that. The forum me and my friends have now is just a simple remotely hosted free board (www.invisionfree.com) (http://www.invisionfree.com)), where you sign up by only giving your email address and name of the forum. So you could say that we have no knowledge of advanced things like MySQL bd...

But hopefully that will not be a problem, as I've come in contact with another friend of mine who's generously agreed to help us out, with buying the licence and installing the forum and stuff like that. But if further problems arise I'll be sure to come here and contact you guys again, because you seem like a nice and helpful bunch of people. :D

when you say that your friend is helping you out with buying the license, what do you mean? He's purchasing the license for you, but in your name? Why aren't you purchasing it yourself, then giving him access to d/l and install to your site?

I have a friend on another site who gave someone the $ to purchase vB for him, but the jerk purchased it in his name instead, and........ you guessed it.

Be careful

[Elsie]

well, he/she did say it was a friend helping out, so hopefully such an issue won't arise. :)


Athani, good luck with it all, and i hope you don't have too much difficulty!

[Peggy]

I would assume it's all done by now, that was a rather old post. I would like to know tho....... ;)

[Elsie]

what can i say? lol

it takes a while but i get there eventually! ;)