Yesterday Microsoft revealed on the Worldwide Partner Conference in Toronto that Windows 8 will be Release to Manufacturing (RTM) in the first week on August, with a release in late October to retail stores.
Today Microsoft revealed that Windows Server 2012 will be RTM at the same time (August 2012), with a release in September already.
That way both Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012 will be RTM in August and available for download also. Just a few weeks later the products are final and ready on selling points.
Good news that Microsoft has so many new releases in one year!
Today I want to install the System Center 2012 suite again with RTM version. Before I started the Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) must be upgraded from the RC to RTM version. This because my RC installation is expired (180 days evaluation) and cannot be used anymore. The following error message is displayed:
A default upgrade from SCVMM RC to RTM is not possible because it's not supported. The following error message is displayed then:
Microsoft has a SCVMM upgrade tool available for doing this. It can be requested HERE Best thing is to open a support incident via the web for free usage. In my case the upgrade tool was available within one (1) hour!
Just follow the steps described in the e-mail message which is send by Microsoft. The most important ones are in this blog post also.
First make sure no open connections are available to SCVMM. Also have a look at which service account is used for the VMM service. Then click uninstall, choose remove features and select the necessary modules. In my case I selected VMM Management Server, VMM Console and VMM Self-Service Portal. On the Database options page make sure to choose Retain Data.
After uninstalling, which takes a few minutes, the database must be upgraded from RC to RTM version. This can be done with the UpgradeVMM2012RC.exe tool, send by Microsoft. With UpgradeVMM2012RC.exe /? you can see what different parameters you can use. The command I used here is showed in the picture. Good news: The upgrade successfully completed!
Now it's time to install SCVMM again. Just start the RTM setup and specify the VMM database retained from the RC installation. Also the Service account used for the VMM service must be filled in again. Select all the components to install the SCVMM RTM version.
When an error message is displayed that the upgrade cannot be done, make sure that all VMM RC components are uninstalled before. It's also possible that an error message is displayed that the VMM Library share already exists. Just remove the share before starting setup again.
After that the Setup completed successfully! Now it's time to look at new functionality and update the existing VMM Agents.
