First published on TECHNET on Apr 01, 2011
VMM 2008 R2 SP1 has been out for just over a week now and we’ve been very pleased with the excitement it’s been generating in the user community. One question that’s come up a lot in the last few days is which download package to use and if there is an “upgrade only” package available.
We are only making full product installer packages available for SP1. The reason is primarily because we want to make sure you don’t get into a situation where you can’t reinstall using your existing DB later on if you need to. Since the older R2 installer won’t recognize the updated SP1 DB, you can’t use it with your DB if a reinstall is necessary at a later time.
Because of that it’s important that you obtain and use the right package to upgrade from R2 to R2 SP1. The SP1 edition you use for the upgrade must match the R2 edition you currently have installed, otherwise you will end up with the edition that you used for the upgrade. If you accidentally use the EVAL edition for the upgrade, don’t worry, you have 365 days to obtain the correct licensed edition. This is the exact same behavior that you would have seen when upgrading from VMM 2008 to VMM 2008 R2.
Here are the locations where you can download the installation packages:
365 day EVAL edition on Microsoft Download Center – use only for evaluation installs
Full licensed product on MSDN
Full licensed product on Microsoft Volume Licensing (VL) site
If you have a valid VMM 2008 R2 license and do not have access to either of those download sites, then you’ll need to contact your sales channel to obtain replacement installation media for SP1. Proof of purchase is required before we can send out updated installation media.
Hopefully these will answer a lot of the questions for the community. Thanks again for your interest in this update!
Greg Cusanza
Program Manager
System Center Virtual Machine Manager
