While recently installing ConfigMgr 2012 R2 Service Pack 1 for a customer we encountered some confusion over just which media should be used.
The important point to realise during installation is that, from a software installation perspective, ConfigMgr 2012 SP2 and ConfigMgr 2012 R2 SP1 are the same – that’s right.
What does this mean in practice? Well – if you’re performing an install of ConfigMgr 2012 R2 SP1, you should go ahead and install from the ConfigMgr 2012 SP2 Media. If you’re downloading this from the Volume Licensing Portal, the ISO file is called SW_DVD5_Sys_Ctr_ConfigMgr_and_Endpnt_Prtctn_2012w_SP2_MultiLang_MLF_X20-21849.ISO.
As you may be aware, R2 introduced some additional features over the base ConfigMgr 2012 such as the Certificate Registration Point, deploying mail, wifi and connectivity profiles and maintenance windows aligned to particular tasks.
So – why aren’t these features there if the 2012 SP2 and 2012 R2 SP1 versions are essentially the same? There is a flag which ConfigMgr indicates that the R2 feature set is enabled – to ‘uplift’ your version to R2, you’ll again need the download from the Volume Licensing Portal. The ISO is called SW_DVD5_Sys_Ctr_ConfigMgrClt_ML_2012_R2w_SP1_MultiLang_ConfMgr2_MLF_X20-21853.ISO. (This really is ~5mb – it’s not a mistake!)
When you run the splash.hta from this ISO, you will be prompted to upgrade your installation to R2 and enable the additional features offered by R2. Thereafter you will have a nice clean install of SCCM 2012 R2 Service Pack 1.
