Confusion?Besides SCOM I also ‘touch’ SCCM 2012x environments. And since SP1/SP2 for SCCM 2012 R2 is available for download I got many questions about the SP1/SP2 updates for SCCM 2012 R2. With this posting I hope to clarify it and not to make the confusion even bigger.
The confusion I see is about two topics:
1st Confusion: SP1 and/or SP2 for SCCM 2012 R2?!Since Microsoft had two different code bases (SCCM 2012 & SCCM 2012 R2) their engineering process wasn’t 100% efficient. Therefore Microsoft decided to merge both code bases in order to achieve a maximum level of efficiency, resulting in a higher product quality.
With the Service Packs for SCCM 2012 (SP2) and SCCM 2012 R2 (SP1) this code base merger is started. Therefore you’ll find TWO different update files, representing TWO different Service Packs:So far so good. But unfortunately, the naming convention Microsoft used for these files adds only to the confusion…
SC2012_SP2_Configmgr_SCEP.exeThis update file contains SP1 for SCCM 2012 R2. But it ALSO contains SP2 for SCCM 2012 SP1. This is THE file where the earlier discussed code merger is executed.
SC2012_R2_SP1_Configmgr.exeThis update file contains the R2 features for SCCM 2012 SP2 environments. I know, the name of this update file adds to the confusion. But this update file is ONLY meant for upgrading SCCM 2012 SP2 environments to SCCM 2012 R2 SP1 level.
2nd ConfusionThe required update files are available from different locations:
Especially the first download location causes some confusion. Meaning: Can I roll out these update files since they came from an EVALUATION website?
In this case the answer is YES, you can. The update files are all the same, no matter what download location you use.
Used sourcesThis posting came to be using these resources. So all credits go the people running these blogs: