Copy WSS List items – including all Metadata

In a recent project, I needed to copy or move lists from one WSS site to another and while doing so retain all metadata including system fields such as “Created By”, “Modified” and “Modified By”.

In MOSS, one can consider using the “Site Content and Structure” as described in http://blog.henryong.com/2008/01/21/how-to-movemigrate-sharepoint-list-itemsdocuments-and-preserve-metadata-properties-at-the-same-time/. However, our particular site was on WSS and this wasn’t an option.

Fortunately, I came across the “SharePoint Content Deployment Wizard” by Chris O’Brien on CodePlex – see http://spdeploymentwizard.codeplex.com/

It took a a few attempts on a test site to get it working exactly as needed but it worked a treat. So, if you need to copy lists (or sites or libraries or list/library items) in WSS and retain all metadata while doing so, do check out the SharePoint Content Deployment Wizard.