Used to temporarily stop the profile and membership synchronization service to synchronize user profile information to a specific site collection or a specific content database. Administrators run preparetomove before doing operations that result in change content databases ID or site collection ID; this includes moving a site collection from one content database to a different one.

The profile and membership synchronization service synchronizes user profile data down to the user information lists for all site collections to ensure consistent user data across the environment. The service also synchronizes site membership data back to the user profiles that store all of the sites where the user is a member. This site membership data is displayed on the user’s My Site. Not running preparetomove where required can cause deletion of user membership metadata. This metadata includes the selections made in the Privacy and Grouping section on the Edit Profile page for My Site memberships.

For additional information about how to configure group and privacy settings within a personalization site, see Manage personalization policies¹.

Important:
Before moving a site collection between content databases, the preparetomove operation must be run in order to ensure all user membership metadata are correctly preserved.

stsadm -o preparetomove

   -contentdb <server name: database name>

   -site <URL name>

   [-oldcontentdb] <unique identifier>

   [-undo]