You are probably familiar with the “fabulous 40” site templates that MOSS 2007 provides.

In SharePoint 2007, when you save a site as a template, these templates will be stored in “Site template gallery” list of the site collection. These templates are stored with .stp extension which are just cab files and can be extracted.

In SharePoint 2010, the site template gallery does not exist. So when you save a site as a template, it will be saved as a ‘WSP’ solution file in “Solutions gallery”. This is the gallery where sandboxed solutions are stored. Moreover, the template needs to be activated before it can be used.

Before you start using the templates, make sure to take backup of your site and test it in a demo environment first to protect your data while upgrading.