Download
Download the v3 release zipfile from the DotNetNuke site (you must be registered and logged in to download files). This version includes the full source code, and is meant to be used on a development machine. You'll later deploy only the runtime files to your production web server.

Clean Installation Instructions
Note: I'm assuming a development machine for this installation discussion.

Installing a clean v3 portal using SQL Server 2000 works much like past versions. You can use MSDE if you don't have a full copy of SQL Server (download MSDE from here). Instructions on configuring MSDE are found here. If you have an MSDN subscription, install the SQL Server 2000 Developer Edition on your WinXP or Server 2003 machine.

The Access data provider is no longer supplied in the installation package. Blackjacket Software, however, is planning on releasing an Access provider for DNN v3 for free. Here's a forum thread with some discussion on this.

Summary clean installation procedure (assumes SQL Server and IIS are installed and operating):

• Unzip the download to a new directory (ex: c:\dnn\dotnetnuke_3.1.0\).
• Give the ASPNET (WinXP) or Network Service (Server 2003) account Read, Write, and Modify permissions on the directory you unzipped to. See the Host Settings page, ASP.NET Identity under the new Site Configuration section to be sure.
• Using IIS Manager, create a virtual directory pointing to your new directory (ex: DNNv3).
• Using SQL Enterprise Manager, create an empty database and create a new user marked as dbo for the database (ex: db=DNNv3, user=dnnv3). This assumes you're using mixed mode authentication on your SQL server installation.
• Edit web.config and set the following key in the appSettings section:
  ADD key="SiteSqlServer" value="Server=(local);Database=DNNv3;uid=dnnv3;pwd=yourpwd;"
• Substitute the name of your sever for (local) above, and the actual name of the database and user.
• Browse to the new site (ex: http://localhost/dnnv3). Your machine will consume some CPU, and the site should load within a minute or two.

Please read the information contained on this page carefully BEFORE you attempt your upgrade!

Download
Download the v3 release zipfile from the DotNetNuke site (you must be registered and logged in to download files). This version includes the full source code, and is meant to be used on a development machine. You'll later deploy only the runtime files to your production web server.

Upgrade from prior version
The v3 release version supports upgrades from all previous production versions, including v1 and v2 DNN portals (excluding the v3 betas v3.0.4-v3.0.11). If your v1 or v2 portal used only standard modules, your upgrade path should be fairly painless - just be sure to backup your database and directories before attempting any upgrade! The best practice would be for you to stage your upgrade using a backup of your site on a test server.

The v3.1.0 version introduced a small, but significant change to the upgrade process. You can read a forum thread that goes into much detail on the what, the why, and complete with plenty of opinions from the community about how to "fix the problem".

The change is that the <appSettings> MachineKeys setting is now generated per machine on a clean install. These keys are used in the member provider to encrypt user login information - this provides a more secure method of encryption than the previous one where all users' MachineKeys were the same.

The new installation instructions are found in this distribution directory: \Documentation\Public, and the file is named DotnetNuke Installation Guide.doc. Please read these installation instructions carefully before beginning your portal upgrade.

I'll post more details here on the upgrade process as I get a chance.

Installation Troubleshooting
If you initially have problems following the above sequence, you may be faced with a persistent database error, even when you've corrected any problems you had in your configuration. One such error message looks like this:

DotNetNuke Upgrade Error

The Assembly Version ( [ASSEMBLYVERSION] ) does not match the Database Version ( [DATABASEVERSION] )

The easiest way to solve this is often to delete the database and re-create it (you may first need to execute 'IISReset' in a command window in order for ASP.NET to release the database so you can delete it).

Note: Be aware that a new database version tracker file was added to the portal in v3.0.10 - be sure when you reset to an empty database to delete this file if it exists: \portals\_default\dnn.config.

If you get the following error - you have a connection string problem in your web.config file:

ERROR: Could not connect to database specified in connectionString for SqlDataProvider

If you're using an Object Qualifier in your SQL Provider (in the web.config file, in the DotNetNuke section under Data) - there's been a change to how the ApplicationName value is stored in the aspnet_Applications table. See this forum post for details on changing this value.