Hold off installing OCS 2007 R2 Cumulative Update 6 and .NET 4.0 gotchas

I've heard of numerous reports of the CU6's SQL back-end update having version mismatch problems with the front-end update.

One cause I can speculate on is that the web caches that Microsoft uses publish the updated bits are lagging behind. Unfortunately, due to the updates always having the same filename from Cumulative Update to Cumulative Update, it is hard to determine what version you have downloaded without looking at the file dates stored in each individual update.

If the front-end is updated without the proper back-end update, the front-end will complain about version mismatches in the SQL stored procedures.

Update: A tip from Tom Pacyk - install the OCS2009-DBUpgrade.msi before the other CU6 updates.

I talked a little about the .NET 4.0 issue here a few days ago but now that .NET 4.0 is on Windows/Microsoft Update as a recommended update, it is hitting more users during OCS installation.

If you install .NET 4.0 Framework before installing any OCS server role, the OCS setup program will complain that .NET 3.5x is not installed, even if you have .NET 3.5x installed (x being equal to 0 or 1, meaning .NET 3.50 or .NET 3.51).

Solution? Uninstall .NET 4.0 Framework, install OCS server roles, and then install .NET 4.0 if necessary. The OCS product team is working with the Windows product team to get a hotfix/update out for this.

Ideally, I wish there was a service pack for OCS 2007 R2 that had updated install bits for the ASN fix and the Server 2008 R2 gotchas.