I recently had the responsibility of moving an existing, in-use Microsoft CRM 3.0 database from it's current location/domain to an entirely new server on a different domain.  Not only was the target domain different but so was the licensing in that we were upgrading our product code and not using a Small Business Server license anymore.  Oh, and I should also mention that the organization name was also changing within the database.

This process is pretty painless, all-in-all, provided you're careful and pay attention to the goings-on of the process.

First of all, I backed-up the SQL Server databases (company_METABASE and company_MSCRM), archived them, and restored them into the new domain.  I also took the time to remove any schemas and logins from the databases that didn't apply in the new domain.

Then, I followed the instruction as provided by the Microsoft CRM Redeployment Tool (thankfully this existed to facilitate this process) on the CRM 3.0 disc 1 (also available via download here) to map users from the old system into the new domain.

When it came time to associate the new CRM installation with the original databases, however, I received the following error "The existing databases are not compatible with this installation of Microsoft CRM".  This was easily fixed by following the recommendations in a KB article and doing some spelunking on my own.  As it turns out, it wasn't liking the new databases because of an organization name change in CRM.  I also received an error because of the license key because we were moving off of the Small Business Server to another non-Small Business Server and the license keys could not be used together.

The following SQL commands fixed the issues:

UPDATE BuildVersion SET Revision = X (where X == the 3.0.5400.X of the SetupServer.exe product version)
UPDATE OrganizationBase SET Name = 'new organization name'
DELETE FROM License

After that, the installation was smooth as glass and without a hitch.

One thing of note as well once we were up and running.  CRM was operating correctly, but anytime we'd access the Reports section, we were greeted with the error "Report.config has invalid schema, and could not be loaded".  Likewise, when we'd go into the Calendar section we'd get an "Unexpected Error".

The fix for these were to make sure that the CRM 3.0 website and the SQL Reporting Services virtual directories were using the proper ASP.NET Version (1.1.4322).