How to: Perform a SharePoint 2013 site collection visual upgrade with PowerShell
To begin the process, I have restored a copy of my content database from my SharePoint 2010 environment on the SQL Server for my SharePoint 2013 environment. The first thing we need to do is mount the content database with Mount-SPContentDatabase . In SharePoint 2010, this process would actually update the database and perform the upgrade. Now, it actually just attaches the database but leaves the site running in SharePoint 2010 mode. Effectively you are running a full copy of SharePoint 2010 inside SharePoint 2013. You can do this and upgrade each site collection one at a time to make the transition process a bit easier. Typically, when you are doing this, you’ll execute Test-SPContentDatabase first and resolve any reported issues. Just like in SharePoint 2010, you need to install all of your customizations via solution package prior to mounting. Test-SPContentDatabase can help you find some of these customizations if they are missi...