Recently, I created an Umbraco site on one machine and I wanted to move it to another. I say site, there was nothing in it. It was really a basic database, but I’d configured it with just an empty install before I zipped up the solution and all the files in it.
When I unzipped the files on to a new machine every time I tried to run the Umbraco install routine it would redirect me to a log on page even although the site had only a completely empty database to connect to (not a single table because the installation hadn’t run yet).
The reason is that on installation part of the web.config is updated.
<add key="umbracoConfigurationStatus" value="4.8.0" />
And that indicates to Umbraco that the installation is complete. So, allow installation to proceed normally remove the value and the installation can start normally, like this:
<add key="umbracoConfigurationStatus" value="" />
The Blog of Colin Mackay 