Upgrade ConfigMgr 2012 SP1 to 2012 R2 Preview

Last week ConfigMgr 2012 R2 Preview became available for download. More about that can be found in the following blogposts: "Updates and New Features in ConfigMgr 2012 R2" and "TechEd 2013 Europe announcements".

Now it's time to update labs with the new bits, Windows Server 2012 R2 Preview and System Center ConfigMgr 2012 R2 Preview. My existing lab is running on Windows Server 2012, SQL Server 2012 SP1 and ConfigMgr 2012 SP1. This installation is described in the following blogpost: "Install ConfigMgr 2012 SP1 on Server 2012 and SQL 2012 SP1". Let's update my lab!

I did an update of Windows Server 2012 first. Within 5 minutes (on SSD) Windows Server 2012 is upgradet to Windows Server 2012 R2 Preview. Nothing special on that one.

After that it's needed to remove Windows Assessment and Deployment Kit (ADK) 8.0 and install ADK for Windows 8.1 Preview. Just select Deployment tools, Windows PE and USMT again.

Last start the System Center ConfigMgr upgrade after that. As described in "Updates and New Features in ConfigMgr 2012 R2". Upgrade to R2 is possible only from ConfigMgr SP1 with Windows ADK 8.1 which can be found HERE.

Just follow these steps for the upgrade:
- Start Splash.hta and choose Install
- Before you begin > Next
- Getting started > Upgrade this ConfigMgr site
- Product key > Install the evaluation edition of this product
- License terms > Accept these license terms
- Prerequisite licenses > Accept these license terms (3x)
- Prerequisite downloads > Download required files (23 items)
- Server language selection > English
- Client language selection > English
- Settings summary > Setup type: Upgrade
- Prerequisite check > In my case 2 items about built-in collections and SQL memory allocation
- Begin install > Elapsed time: 21 minutes
- Upgrade: Core setup has completed!

Very nice to have System Center ConfigMgr 2012 R2 installed now! Expect more blogposts to come about R2 later this month.