Migrating from IIS 8.5 on Windows Server 2012 R2 to IIS 10 on Windows Server 2019

Solution 1:

Using the WebAdministration module is safe but it's also slow.

As long as your target server is not live yet and you can play around with it, I would directly edit the C:\Windows\System32\inetsrv\config\ApplicationHost.config file.

Copy the <sites> node from the config file on the old server to the config file on the new server.

Also copy any <location ...> notes, usually at the end of the file.

IIS 8.5 and IIS 10 are very similar and this should work. Always make a backup of the file you are changing.

Then you can just use Search and Replace of in the config file to change physical locations or bindings.