Slipstream SharePoint 2013 with March PU + CU
I have seen several inquiries out here on the internet, along with a few blogs where people have experienced issues when trying to slipstream SharePoint 2013 to the latest Cumulative Update, ex: October 2013 CU. As most of you may know, in order to get to the latest build, you must install March 2013 PU as a pre-requisite before you can get October 2013, December 2013 CU applied. In theory, the slipstreaming process consists of
- Downloading the PU\CU
- Extracting the contents of the PU\CU
- Move them into the “updates” folder in your SP installation folder and GO
The problem we have seen with some of our customers in SP 2013, is they extract March PU, October 2013 CU along with the contents of the “ubersrv_1.cab”, and then copy these into the “updates” folder. They then install SharePoint with the expectation that when the farm builds out, it would reflect the build of the latest update ( ex: 4551.1000 for October ) but in reality it shows the farm build to be RTM still.
Note: I am going to stop right here for a minute and advise that if you want to install a base install with the latest builds, I would advise to go ahead and download a slipstreamed build of “SP 2013 with SP1” ( from MSDN ) OR download SP1, extract its contents ( using “officeserversp2013-kb2817429-fullfile-x64-en-us.exe /extract:C:\SP1_extract” ) and just build your slipstream this way. SP1 includes all of the PU\CU updates since the release of RTM up through December 2013 CU & January 2014 PU
If you decide you are not ready to do this and still want to slipstream March 2013 PU + “subsequent CU”, then I am going to outline how you can successfully do this. I would also like to preface this with the fact that this is primarily applicable if you are slipstreaming March PU + “subsequent CU” with the English language only.
Here we go! ( I am using October 2013 CU as my “subsequent CU” in my steps here )
I want to provide a little background on WHY just extracting and putting into “updates” folders will not work. Since March 2013 PU is a pre-requisite to installing CU’s, SP must know that March PU has been applied before it can apply the October 2013 CU. This is known as a new baseline called “SP0” How does it know its applied when this is a brand new install? It doesn’t, so it does not apply the updates at all and this is why you see the farm build out at RTM still. In order to get these updates to “apply” we have to do a little manipulation to the .msp files to “trick” SP into applying the March 2013 PU updates and then the later CU .msp will be applied.
Start By Downloading the following:
March 2013 Public Update:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2767999
September 2013 Update:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2810081
October 2013 Cumulative Update:
http://support.microsoft.com/hotfix/KBHotfix.aspx?kbnum=2825647
· Once you have these downloaded and saved to C:\Hotfix\UpdateDir>, you will want to extract each one..
· Starting with March 2013 CU, I run the following command to extract the msp’s from the .exe
c:\Hotfix\March 2013 PU>ubersrvsp2013-kb2767999-fullfile-x64-glb.exe /extract:"C:\Hotfix\March 2013 PU\extracted"
· Like I mentioned in a previous email, in order to get to the October 2013 CU or later builds, like October or December, the server needs to think it has a new baseline, what we refer to as SP0, before it will apply those binaries during the install.
· In order to trick the server into thinking this, we have to do some manipulation to the March 2013 PU msp’s and rename them before putting them into the “updates” folder..
· Once you have extracted them, there should be 16 of these files, we will want to rename them to have a “_” as a prefix and a “-SP0” as a suffix
· I used a tool called “Bulk Rename” to do this, but this is what the file names should look like
_acsrvwfe-x-none-SP0.msp
_coreserver-x-none-SP0.msp
_eduwfe-x-none-SP0.msp
_ifswfe-x-none-SP0.msp
_lpsrvwfe-x-none-SP0.msp
_oserver-x-none-SP0.msp
_osfserver-x-none-SP0.msp
_ppsmawfe-x-none-SP0.msp
_pptserver-x-none-SP0.msp
_sms-x-none-SP0.msp
_sts-x-none-SP0.msp
_vsrvwfe-x-none-SP0.msp
_wasrvwfe-x-none-SP0.msp
_wdsrv-x-none-SP0.msp
_wss-x-none-SP0.msp
_xlsrvwfe-x-none-SP0.msp
· Once you have renamed these, you can now place them into your “updates” folder ( C:\Apps\SP2013\October4551\Updates )
· Next extract the September 2013 Update
c:\Hotfix\September 2013 Update>svrproofloc2013-kb2760250-fullfile-x64-glb.exe /extract:"C:\Hotfix\September 2013 Update\extracted”
· Since this is English Only, we will copy the following file and place it into the “updates” folder”
svrproof-en-us.msp
· Now lets move to the October 2013 CU
· Keep in mind this patch has the “ubersrv2013-kb2825647-fullfile-x64-glb.exe” but it also has a “.com” file and the “ubersrv_1.cab” file…
· We will want to extract the files from the “.exe” and the “.cab” file..
c:\Hotfix\October 2013-4551.1005>ubersrv2013-kb2825647-fullfile-x64-glb.exe /extract:"C:\Hotfix\October 2013-4551.1005\extracted"
· To extract the .cab files, just go into the cab file, select All and then extract to "C:\Hotfix\October 2013-4551.1005\cab_extracted”
· Once you have extracted all of these files, and since this is English Only, we want to go find the files ending in “en-us.msp” AND “x-none.msp”
From the “C:\Hotfix\October 2013-4551.1005\extracted”
acsrvmui-en-us.msp
coreservermui-en-us.msp
edumui-en-us.msp
ifsmui-en-us.msp
lpsrvmui-en-us.msp
osfservermui-en-us.msp
ppsmamui-en-us.msp
pptservermui-en-us.msp
smsmui-en-us.msp
acsrvwfe-x-none.msp
coreserver-x-none.msp
eduwfe-x-none.msp
ifswfe-x-none.msp
lpsrvwfe-x-none.msp
osfserver-x-none.msp
ppsmawfe-x-none.msp
pptserver-x-none.msp
sms-x-none.msp
sts-x-none.msp
vsrvwfe-x-none.msp
wasrvwfe-x-none.msp
wdsrv-x-none.msp
wss-x-none.msp
xlsrvwfe-x-none.msp
From the “C:\Hotfix\October 2013-4551.1005\cab_extracted”
acsrvmui-en-us.msp
wssmui-en-us.msp
pptserver-x-none.msp
sts-x-none.msp
wdsrv-x-none.msp
· Put these into the “updates” folder
· At this point, you should have 46 files in the folder.
You should be able to install SP at this point and it reflect the correct build when the farm is built. Setting this baseline by renaming the Marm 2013 PU msp’s is the key point here in getting this to work correctly. Our source code knows that the files with “_” should be installed first and then we can apply the later CU’s. This takes a bit of work to get this done, but it can be done. Again, if you want to just download SP1, you should be able to extract these files and put them into “updates” or download a pre-built SP1 install.
Hope this is helpful!