This topic provides step-by-step instructions for upgrading to System Center Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) 2008 R2 from VMM 2008 while retaining your previous VMM data. If you do not want to retain your existing data, uninstall VMM 2008, selecting the Remove data option on the Uninstallation Options page, and then perform a clean installation of VMM 2008 R2. For more information, see New Installation of VMM 2008 R2.

For information about migrating from VMM 2008 R2 Beta to VMM 2008 R2, go to Migrating to VMM 2008 (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=123893).

Upgrading to System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2 from VMM 2007 is not supported. To upgrade VMM 2007 to VMM 2008 R2, you must first upgrade VMM 2007 to VMM 2008, and then upgrade to VMM 2008 R2. For information about upgrading VMM 2007 to VMM 2008, see Migrating from VMM 2007 to VMM 2008 at Migrating from VMM 2007 to VMM 2008 (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=142430).

Caution
To avoid any loss of important data, before you upgrade VMM, it is highly recommended that you perform a full backup on your VMM database.

Important
After upgrading VMM, all jobs that were run prior to the upgrade will appear in the job history; however, those jobs cannot be restarted after the upgrade. It is recommended that you allow all jobs to complete before upgrading the VMM server. Jobs that are canceled during the upgrade cannot be restarted after the upgrade is completed.

Use the following procedure to upgrade from VMM 2008. To perform this procedure, you must have administrator privileges on the computer.

1. Log on to the computer on which your VMM 2008 server is installed.

2. On the product media or network share, right-click setup.exe, and the click Run as administrator.

   Important
   If you set up a network share to install VMM components, you should apply the appropriate security to the share to ensure that no unauthorized or unauthenticated users can access or alter the contents of the share.

3. On the Setup menu, click VMM Server to open the Upgrade System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 Wizard.

4. On the Confirmation page, verify the list of VMM components that are already installed on this computer, and then to upgrade all installed VMM components, click Upgrade.

   Note
   If you want to move one or more of the installed VMM components to a different computer for your VMM 2008 R2 implementation, click Cancel, uninstall those VMM components from this computer, and then run setup.exe again.

5. On the SQL Server Settings page, provide credentials that have permission to access and update the VMM database by doing one of the following:

   1. To use the same credentials that you are logged on with, click Next.
      
      
   2. To provide a different set of credentials, select the Use the following credentials check box, and then type the credentials.
      
      

      Important

      If any jobs are running when you started the upgrade, you will receive a warning message. You can do one of the following: Click Cancel to cancel the wizard, wait for the jobs to complete, and then run the upgrade wizard again. Click OK to ignore the warning and continue the upgrade. VMM will cancel the jobs that are running. It is recommended that you allow all jobs to complete before upgrading the VMM server. Jobs that are canceled during the upgrade cannot be restarted after the upgrade is completed.

6. On the Completion page, click Close.

   Important
   You also must run the Upgrade System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 Wizard to upgrade any VMM 2008 components that are installed on other computers, including the VMM Administrator Console and the VMM Self-Service Portal.

7. After the upgrade, all hosts and library servers must be refreshed to show the correct status. To run an on-demand host refresh, in an upgraded VMM Administrator Console, in Hosts view, select one or more virtual machine hosts, and then, in the Actions pane, click Refresh.

   You can check the status of the host refresh in Jobs view.

8. After a host has been refreshed, it will have a status of Needs Attention, except for the VMM server if it is also serving as a host. This is because the stand-alone hosts still have the previous version of the VMM agent installed. These hosts are fully functional, so you do not have to immediately update the agents on all hosts.

   Note
   So that performance is not adversely affected, it is recommended that you update hosts in batches of 10 to 25.

9. To update the hosts, in the VMM Administrator Console, in Hosts view, select one or more hosts with a status of Needs Attention, and then in the Actions pane, click Update Agent.

   You can check the status of the agent update in Jobs view. When the refresh is complete, the host status will be OK.

10. In the VMM Administrator Console, in Library view, select one or more library servers, and then in the Actions pane, click Refresh.

    You can check the status of the library server refresh in Jobs view.

11. After the refresh is complete, in the VMM Administrator Console, navigate to Administration view, and then click Managed Computers.

12. Select one or more computers that have a role of Library and an agent status of Upgrade Available, and then, in the Actions pane, click Update Agent.

    You can check the status of the agent update in Jobs view. When the update is complete, the library server will have a version status of Up-to-date.

See Also