SharePoint Migration: A Case Where Different == Good

So there I was, moving a 2007 Web from a site collection in a 2007 Farm to a site collection in a 2010 Farm [Some day I will get around to a long post about that – don’t hold your breath though] and I was going through the differences between the 2007 web and the 2010 web with a fine toothed comb (aka custom utility I wrote up for the purpose) when I found a difference in list templates:

2007 Web

<listTemplate Name="Document Library" BaseType="DocumentLibrary" CategoryType="Libraries" Description="Create a document library when you have a collection of documents or other files that you want to share.  Document libraries support features such as folders, versioning, and check out." DocumentTemplate="101" FeatureId="00bfea71-e717-4e80-aa17-d0c71b360101" Hidden="False" InternalName="doclib" IsCustomTemplate="False" Type="DocumentLibrary" Unique="False" />

2010 Web

<listTemplate Name="Document Library" BaseType="DocumentLibrary" CategoryType="Libraries" Description="A place for storing documents or other files that you want to share. Document libraries allow folders, versioning, and check out." DocumentTemplate="121" FeatureId="00bfea71-e717-4e80-aa17-d0c71b360101" Hidden="False" InternalName="doclib" IsCustomTemplate="False" Type="DocumentLibrary" Unique="False" />

See the difference? You should, since I highlighted it and all. Yes, the descriptions are also different, but I think you are safe from that difference causing widespread problems...

Having different doc templates for the doc library lists warranted some further investigation – just to make sure this was not going to be an issue. So checking into the document templates referenced by each, we have:

Template 101

<DocumentTemplate Path="STS" DisplayName="$Resources:core,doctemp_Word97;" Type="101" Default="TRUE" Description="$Resources:core,doctemp_Word97_Desc;">

Template 121

<DocumentTemplate Path="STS" DisplayName="$Resources:core,doctemp_Word;" Type="121" Default="TRUE" Description="$Resources:core,doctemp_Word_Desc;">

Result: Rather than have SharePoint 2010 date itself (2010 is last year at the time of this writing), it now shows the generic ‘Microsoft Office Word document’ as the type name, as opposed to ‘Microsoft Office Word 97-2003 document’. So this turns out to be a welcome change and a good idea – especially when it is 2015 and I am deploying SP 2010 to a datacenter on the moon (dark side of course).