Upgrade from Sitefinity CMS 9.1 or 9.2

IMPORTANT: Sitefinity 9.1 and Sitefinity 9.2 are retired releases. You must upgrade to 14.4 LTS or newer version. We recommend always choosing the latest available version.
For more information, see Progress Sitefinity Life Cycle Policy Guide.

If your project is running on Sitefinity CMS 9.1 and above, to upgrade it, perform the following:

1. Backup your project and its database.
2. Set the target framework version of your project to .NET Framework 4.8.
   Perform the following:
   1. Open your project in Visual Studio.
   2. In the context menu of SitefinityWebApp, click Properties.
   3. On Application tab, in Target framework dropdown box, select .NET Framework 4.8.
   4. Save the changes to your project
3. Reinstall all packages:
   1. In Visual Studio, navigate to Tools » NuGet Package Manager » Package Manager Console.
   2. Execute the following command: Update-Package -Reinstall

      NOTE: You do this, because changing the target framework requires re-installation of all packages.

4. In the Package Manager Console, install the latest Telerik.Sitefinity.All package using the following command:  Install-Package Telerik.Sitefinity.All
   

   NOTE: With this command you install the latest patch build, if you want to install a specific version you must use the command above followed by -Version and the version number.
   For example, enter Install-Package Telerik.Sitefinity.All -Version 15.2.8499.

   NOTE: The BCL dependency used by Sitefinity CMS to integrate Azure search in previous versions is also removed. As a result, you can safely remove the Tools folder under the root of your SitefinityWebApp project. 

5. In the Package Manager Console, uninstall the following packages and delete the respective assemblies from the project's bin folder:
   • Telerik.Sitefinity.Thunder
   • Telerik.Sitefinity.DropboxLibraries
   • Telerik.Sitefinity.MobileAppBuilder
   • Telerik.Sitefinity.DAM
   • Telerik.Sitefinity.EverliveConnector
   • Telerik.Sitefinity.OpenAccess

6. Build your solution.

IMPORTANT: Support for Web Forms capabilities in Sitefinity CMS frontend was discontinued in version 14.1. Progress strongly advises against using Web Forms for production deployments in any version beyond 13.3 LTS, which is the last officially supported version for Web Forms.
Web Forms capabilities are no longer eligible for support, feature development, or bug fixes - including security updates. Any newly introduced or discovered issues, including critical bugs without workarounds, will not be addressed.
The recommended alternative options are ASP.NET Core and Next.js.

NOTE: MVC capabilities are supported in all supported Sitefinity releases - 13.3 LTS, 14.4 LTS, and 15.x.

To help you evaluate the current state of your project, use the Sitefinity Migration Analyzer. For more information, see Sitefinity Migration Analyzer.

Depending on the results, perform one of the following:

• Web Forms
  If your project runs Web Forms pages, templates, or widgets, you must modernize the frontend technology that your website uses.

  You can choose between ASP.NET Core or Next.js. For more information, see Advantages of modern frontend technologies.

  After choosing a technology, perform one of the following

  • Migrate from Web Forms to ASP.NET Core
  • Migrate from Web Forms to Next.js
• MVC

  RECOMMENDATION: If your project runs MVC pages, templates, or widgets, we recommend modernizing the frontend technology that your website uses.

  You can choose between ASP.NET Core or Next.js. For more information, see Advantages of modern frontend technologies.

  After choosing a technology, perform one of the following:

  • Migrate from MVC to ASP.NET Core
  • Migrate from MVC to Next.js
• Hybrid – Web Forms and MVC

  If your project runs both Web Forms and MVC pages, templates, or widgets, you must transition Web Forms to ASP.NET Core or Next.js. You can still run the MVC pages, templates, and widgets, however we recommend modernizing them as well.

  NOTE: In the special case when you have very few Web Forms elements and predominantly MVC, to minimize costs, you can migrate Web Forms to MVC and continue running in MVC only mode.
  For more information, see Migrate from Web Forms to MVC.

Cloud migration involves transitioning from self-hosted environments to fully managed cloud services provided by Progress Sitefinity.
Consider the option to migrate to Sitefinity Cloud to streamline future upgrades, reduce infrastructure overhead, and enhance overall system reliability.
For more information, see Cloud migration.