Creating a New Instance Via Cloning

[BigFrank]

I am trying to set up a test environment to test new mods and scripts. I thought the best way would be to clone the existing environment and then simply modify the values in the config/setup files.  While I was able to set up another site successfully, incoming SMTP messages would get accepted by both the PROD and TEST environments.  I did purchase the the mailbox and mailboxpro modules.  I also found my ttxcfg file in PROD would get modified so that I would get a "NEW TICKET.HTML MISSING" message. I restored the file from a backup and I was ok.

So now, I deleted the TEST VM and I am cloning again but with the intention of deleting all files in /inetpub/scripts and start a new installation.

My question is, was this a bad idea from the beginning or is it possible to clone the web server and then make modifications to certain files? If so, which ones? Thanks.

Details of my env are as follows:
rev. 3.01.769 SQL Server Edition
Windows 2008 Enterprise 32 bit
SQL Server 2005 (on another system)
IIS 7
Mods are
mailboxpro
TTXInventory 3.01 769
TTXLayout 3.0 611
TTXMSSQLSetup 3.01 769
TTXMSSQLTickets 3.0 677
TTXMail 3.01 769
TTXMarkup 3.01 769

DBI module version 1.607 found

DBD Drivers found:
CSV
DBM
ExampleP
File
Gofer
ODBC
Oracle
Proxy
SQLite
Sponge
Net::SMTP module version 2.31 found
Authen::SASL module version 2.15 found
MIME::Parser module version 5.428 found
No Image::Size module found.
Time::Local module version 1.1901 found
GD module version 2.44 found
Encode module version 2.35 found

[Sparky]

I'm not understanding your request.  I have 7 different installations of TTX running on one server account here.

[BigFrank]

I would like to set up a Test environment on a seperate web server on a seperate machine.  i want to leave my prod env alone.  I thought i could this by cloning the prod box and modifying scripts. Is that not possible or can you suggest an alternate method? Thank you.

[Sparky]

Like I said before it's very easy to setup multiply instances on one machine.  I have each in a separate directory and only have to edit the URLs in the configuration file.  They do not share anything or mingle with each other. 

[BigFrank]

Hi. Just a follow up here. I successfully cloned my production Help Desk System and edited the config files and some properties in IIS.  Then I took a backup of the existing Inetpub/scripts folder and moved it to another folder.  Then, I took a fresh install of TTX and placed those files in inetpub/scripts. Finally, I moved file after file from the old directory into the new one replacing as necessary.  I found that there was some problem with the ttxcfg file. After some editing, I got my test site up successfully.
Why did I do this?
I required a completely different system for testing.  Access to production should be limited.  I'm testing mods with ease and piece of mind.
FYI.