Archive: ConfigMgr 2012 R2 Service Pack 1 Install and Overview

This is a quick post to go through the SCCM 2012 R2 Service Pack 1 upgrade process. If you’ve installed a service pack for SCCM 2012 in the past, the process is still the same. This service pack is slightly confusing by name – for SCCM 2012 R2, it’s referred to as “SP1”. For SCCM 2012 (without R2), it’s referred to as “SP2”. Here’s all that you need to know: this is one service pack with two names that is applicable for all versions of SCCM 2012. If you’re not on R2 yet, you can run both new binaries to fully upgrade to SCCM 2012 R2 SP1. Confused yet?

In summary, here’s some of the biggest new features in this SP:

• Windows 10 Support in OS deployment
• Preferred Management Points – if clients have more than one MP available, you can control which one they will report into first
• Warnings before deploying a task sequence that could “cause damage”
• Task Sequence USB media support now greater than 32GB
• Several more Intune integration features
• Here’s the full list of changes

When ready to upgrade, download the self-extracting installers and run them in this order:

Like other ConfigMgr service packs, extract the contents and run “splash.hta”.

Install from “SC2012_SP2_Configmgr_SCEP.exe” first. You can verify the version on the splash screen (highlighted below).

Choose to “Upgrade this Configuration Manager site”.

You will need to download prerequisite files just like in previous versions.

You can see that the setup type is “Upgrade”.

You will be presented with any warnings or items to fix prior to install, then you can begin the installation.

If you started on SCCM 2012 R2, you’re all done at this point. If you started on SCCM 2012 or 2012 SP1, keep going and run the second binary named “SC2012_R2_SP1_Configmgr.exe”. You can see the version reflected in the splash screen. Choose Upgrade.

This installation is much smaller and faster.

When you launch SCCM, the new version reflected in the Site Properties should be 5.00.8239.1000.

This version should also appear for your clients once they are upgraded.

Right now, this media can be downloaded in the Technet Evaluation Center, though the media is the same between the evaluation and the full version. You also have the option to install a Configuration Manager 2012 R2 SP1 from scratch using this media.

In summary, there’s nothing new to installing this service pack  compared to prior versions of 2012, but the names could be a bit confusing if you don’t pay close attention.

I’ll follow this post up with some other related info, such as deploying the SCCM 2012 R2 SP1 client upgrade.

Update 5/14/2015: Thanks to @jarwidmark for some additional clarity around the versions!

Update 5/15/2015: Here’s a chart to know which version(s) to install (credit to @GrizzlyCM):

Starting version	Step1	Step2 (if needed)	Final version
Fresh	2012 SP2		2012 SP2
Fresh	2012 SP2	2012 R2 SP1	2012 R2 SP1
2012 RTM	2012 SP2		2012 SP2
2012 RTM	2012 SP2	2012 R2 SP1	2012 R2 SP1
2012 SP1	2012 SP2		2012 SP2
2012 SP1	2012 SP2	2012 R2 SP1	2012 R2 SP1
2012 R2	2012 SP2		2012 R2 SP1

Update 7/19/2015: Before installing this Service Pack, beware of a bug that causes driver packages to multiply in size! If you use the OS Deployment functionality of SCCM, you may want to hold off for now.

Update 8/5/2015: Cumulative Update 1 has been released to fix several bugs in this Service Pack. I highly recommend installing it – here’s my post on it. The driver import issue is not fixed in this release.