Is there a way to back up/restore SharePoint 2010 Application Pages built with Visual Studio?

Question

I have a few separate Application Pages built for SharePoint 2010 using Visual Studio 2012 and I'd like a way to back up and restore these SharePoint solutions (does not have to be a SharePoint based backup/restore) in case of server failure or other means.

Thanks.

Answer 1

First, to be able to create an Application Page in SharePoint, you should create a SharePoint Solution then add an application page that must be deployed as farm solution only.

When you build your solution, it's packaged in a SharePoint Solution package (WSP) file. and you can use PowerShell Add-SPSolution and Install-SPSolution to deploy it to your farm.

After deploying your solution the Application page will be located in 14 hive at C:\Program Files\Common Files\microsoft shared\Web Server Extensions\14\TEMPLATE\LAYOUTS\yoursolution name

And the WSP solution should be listed in Central administration > System Management > Manage Farm Solutions

So you need to backup and restore a WSP solution rather than page as the following:

Backup WSP solution,

Now you will be able to backup all the WSP solution that deployed to your farm via PowerShell as the following:

$FolderPath = "c:\WSPSolutions"  
foreach ($solution in Get-SPSolution)  
{  
   $id = $Solution.SolutionID  
   $title = $Solution.Name  
   $filename = $Solution.SolutionFile.Name  
   $solution.SolutionFile.SaveAs("$FolderPath\$filename") 
}

Or you can just backup specific solution as

$file = (Get-SPFarm).Solutions.Item("AppPageSolution.wsp").SolutionFile
$file.SaveAs("c:\backup\AppPageSolution.wsp")

Restore WSP solution,

• you can perform bulk deploy using https://spsd.codeplex.com/
• Or use Add-SPSolution and Install-SPSolution.

For more details check Install and deploy a SharePoint (WSP) Solution Package using SharePoint Shell