Use the information in the following sections to help you upgrade your System Center 2012 Configuration Manager site and hierarchy to a new service pack successfully.

Pre-Upgrade Configurations for Configuration Manager Sites

Before you upgrade a site to a new service pack, review the applicable upgrade checklist to understand any pre-upgrade configurations that the site or hierarchy requires. Additionally, plan to record details about any configurations and settings that you use and that do not persist after an upgrade to that service pack version.

For more information about pre-upgrade tasks and configurations, see the applicable sections in the Planning to Upgrade System Center 2012 Configuration Manager topic.

For upgrades to Configuration Manager SP1:

Test the Configuration Manager Site Database for the Upgrade

Before you upgrade a site, test a copy of that site’s database for the upgrade.

To test the database for an upgrade, you first restore a copy of the site database to an instance of SQL Server that does not host a Configuration Manager site. The version of SQL Server that you use to host the database copy must be a version of SQL Server that the version of Configuration Manager supports that is the source of the database copy.

Next, after you restore the site database, on the SQL Server computer, run Configuration Manager Setup from the Configuration Manager service pack media, with the /TESTDBUPGRADE command-line option.

Use the following procedure on each central administration site and primary site that you plan to upgrade.

To test a Configuration Manager site database for upgrade

Upgrade a Configuration Manager Site

After you complete pre-upgrade configurations for your site, test the upgrade of the site database on a database copy, and download prerequisite files and language packs for the service pack version that you plan to install, you are ready to upgrade your Configuration Manager site.

When you upgrade a site in a hierarchy, you upgrade the top-level site of the hierarchy first. This top-level site is either a central administration site or a stand-alone primary site. After the upgrade of a central administration site is completed, you can upgrade child primary sites in any order that you want. After you upgrade a primary site, you can upgrade that site’s child secondary sites, or upgrade additional primary sites before you upgrade any secondary sites.

To upgrade a central administration site or primary site, you run Setup from the Configuration Manager service pack media. However, you do not run Setup to upgrade secondary sites. Instead, you use the Configuration Manager console to upgrade a secondary site after you complete the upgrade of its primary parent site.

Before you upgrade a site, close the Configuration Manager console that is installed on the site server until after the site upgrade is completed. Also close each Configuration Manager console that runs on computers other than the site server. You can reconnect the console after the site upgrade is completed. However, until you upgrade a Configuration Manager console to Configuration Manager SP1, that console cannot display some objects and information that are available in Configuration Manager SP1.

Use the following procedures to upgrade Configuration Manager sites:

To upgrade a central administration site or primary site

To upgrade a secondary site

Perform Post-Upgrade Tasks on Configuration Manager Sites

After you upgrade a site to a new service pack, you might have to complete additional tasks to finish the upgrade or reconfigure the site. These tasks can include the upgrade of Configuration Manager clients or Configuration Manager consoles, re-enabling database replicas for management points, or restoring settings for Configuration Manager functionality that you use and that does not persist after the service pack upgrade.

For more information about these tasks and settings, see the applicable sections in the Planning to Upgrade System Center 2012 Configuration Manager topic.

For upgrades to Configuration Manager SP1:

See Also