Wordpress resets plugin settings when migrating

I am migrating a wordpress site from one domain to the other.Plugins lose my preferences in the process.I really don't understand why.I'm curious as to why this happens.

Here are the steps i went through:

 1. uploaded wordpress files from localhost 
    through FTP on the new domain ( http://example-live.com )
 2. uploaded database to the new domain
 3. changed all links referring to http://localhost to http://example-live.com
 4. treated text_widgets differently because they are serialized in the db.
 5. edited .htaccess
 6. updated wp_config.php 
 

Pages display normally but I am missing plugin preferences...Any thoughts ?

Edit: Found this: http://codex.wordpress.org/Moving_WordPress

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