How to migrate from Windows x86 to x64?

[jeremyhagand61]

According to the documentation
https://docs.splunk.com/Documentation/Splunk/7.0.1/Installation/MigrateaSplunkinstance
I can migrate Splunk from Windows 32-bit to Windows 64-bit by simply copying the files from the old machine to the new machine and running the installer over the top.

However, when I perform these steps I get and error saying splunkd.exe failed to start and then the installation is rolled back. If I install a vanilla instance of splunk on the machine it works, so I know it is not some unmet prerequisite.

However, this wiki
https://wiki.splunk.com/Deploy:Migrating_a_Splunk_Install
alludes to some "special steps" when migrating from 32 to 64bit on Windows, but the link is ancient and broken.

Can anyone offer some advice?

[mayurr98 · Accepted solution]

hey
If you do decided to migrate, I would:

• back up your etc and var folders, and also your license file if this was a server.
• also using Windows service manager figure out what user is Splunk running as. You'll need to install the new Splunk with the same user so that the file ownership remains the same.
• uninstall the current splunk, it doesn't install in a different directory than the 64bit version.
• install new Splunk 64bit Splunk
• stop it, copy over etc and var folders
• restart it.

Let me know if this helps !

[jeremyhagand61]

Thanks. It seems to have worked. I got an error message about some files being malformed, but all my indexes and dashboard users and passwords all came across.