SQL Server Express edition has never been a supported database for Windchill, so you won't find any documentation on it. Windchill only supports SQL Server Standard or Enterprise editions. SQL Server Developer edition is the free version of Enterprise edition. It is not officially supported, but it is so close to being Enterprise Edition that we can safely use it for development systems (not production or other 'persistent' instances like training, failover, etc.).
Try asking ChatGPT "convert SQL Server 2019 Express to Enterprise edition".
It suggests two paths forward:
A. Backup the database from the Express instance and restore to the shared Enterprise instance, with a few additional steps...
B. Upgrade Express to Developer on the current Express server, upgrade Developer to Enterprise, and finally backup and restore to your shared Enterprise instance.
When the database has been ported to the SQL Server Enterprise Edition instance, Windchill just points to the database with these properties in site.xconf.
<!-- DB -->
<Property name="wt.db.dataStore"
overridable="true"
targetFile="codebase/wt.properties"
value="SQLServer"/>
<Property name="wt.pom.jdbc.host"
overridable="true"
targetFile="db/db.properties"
value="{SQL hostname}"/>
<Property name="wt.pom.jdbc.port"
overridable="true"
targetFile="db/db.properties"
value="{SQL Server port}"/>
<Property name="wt.pom.jdbc.service"
overridable="true"
targetFile="db/db.properties"
value="{DB instance name (or blank if using default instance)}"/>
<Property name="wt.pom.jdbc.database"
overridable="true"
targetFile="db/db.properties"
value="{Windchill DB name}"/>
<Property name="wt.pom.dbUser"
overridable="true"
targetFile="db/db.properties"
value="{Windchill DB username}"/>
<Property name="wt.pom.dbPassword"
overridable="true"
targetFile="db/db.properties"
value="encrypted.wt.pom.dbPassword"/>
Set them using xconfmanager:
xconfmanager -t db/db.properties -s wt.pom.jdbc.host={SQL hostname} -s wt.pom.jdbc.port={SQL Server port} -s wt.pom.jdbc.service={DB instance name (or blank if using default instance)} -s wt.pom.jdbc.database={Windchill DB name} -s wt.pom.dbUser={Windchill DB username} -s wt.pom.dbPassword={Windchill DB user password} -p
