General Information
When installing Lync 2013 Servers, as a part of the install, SQL Express 2012 RTM is installed. In fact, there are several instances on Lync 2013 Front End Servers that get installed. The following lists what SQL Express instances get installed on what servers:
Standard Edition Front End Server
- RTCLocal
- LyncLocal
- RTC
Enterprise Edition Front End Server
- RTCLocal
- LyncLocal
Now let’s say your Front End Servers are not installed yet. There’s a great way to pre-install your SQL 2012 Express instances with SP1 instead of letting the Lync 2013 Deployment Wizard install SQL. If you pre-install these SQL 2012 Express SP1 instances, Lync 2013 deployment wizard will see that the prerequisite of needing SQL 2012 is met, and will forgo the need for installing any SQL 2012 Express instances and will utilize the pre-installed SQL 2012 Express SP1 instances. For more information on this, please see this TechNet blog post here.
Lync MVP, Pat Richard, has created an excellent script for all sorts of automated tool downloads/installs as well as prerequisite installs. His script will take care of the SQL 2012 Express SP1 instances for you as well. His script is here.
Let’s say you didn’t know about Pat’s script or that you could preinstall SQL 2012 Express SP1 and you have already installed Lync 2013 Front End Servers using the SQL 2012 Express RTM code. I will show you how to upgrade your SQL 2012 Express RTM instances to SQL 2012 Express SP1.
Installation of SQL 2012 Express SP1 x64
First, you will need to download the SQL 2012 Express SP1 x64 bits from here.
Once these bits are downloaded, open a Command Prompt and navigate to where these bits are downloaded.
On an Enterprise Edition Server, you will want to run the following two commands:
SQLEXPR_x64_ENU.exe /ACTION=Patch /INSTANCENAME=RTCLOCAL /QS /HIDECONSOLE /IAcceptSQLServerLicenseTerms
SQLEXPR_x64_ENU.exe /ACTION=Patch /INSTANCENAME=LYNCLOCAL /QS /HIDECONSOLE /IAcceptSQLServerLicenseTerms
On a Standard Edition Server, you will want to run the following three commands:
SQLEXPR_x64_ENU.exe /ACTION=Patch /INSTANCENAME=RTCLOCAL /QS /HIDECONSOLE /IAcceptSQLServerLicenseTerms
SQLEXPR_x64_ENU.exe /ACTION=Patch /INSTANCENAME=LYNCLOCAL /QS /HIDECONSOLE /IAcceptSQLServerLicenseTerms
SQLEXPR_x64_ENU.exe /ACTION=Patch /INSTANCENAME=RTC /QS /HIDECONSOLE /IAcceptSQLServerLicenseTerms
In my environment, I have initiated the update for the RTCLocal instance. Below are a few screenshots of the update process in action.
Validating SP1 Installation
Once the install is complete, I’m sure you’ll want to validate the instance has been updated to SP1. Fortunately, an excellent script for this is provided here. Once downloaded onto your server, you will have to run the following command to allow this unsigned script to be run:
Set-ExecutionPolicy Unrestricted
Go ahead and execute the getInfo-SqlServer.ps1 script.
As expected, we see the RTCLOCAL instance has successfully been updated to SP1.
Guys -great info! If I might add one comment. I had the exact same experience you both documented. For me (and I did this twice to verify) a reboot after doing the RTCLOCAL and running the SQL update from an elevated Management Shell allowed me to see the SP1 update in the getinfo script the first time for LYNCLOCAL.
I had the same problem with LYNCLOCAL instance. I tried running the command many times using powershell, however it did not help. Running the update in a command prompt got the instance updated for me in one go. So looks like something not right with Powershell.
Old post, but useful nonetheless. Thanks Elan. I ran these today on my Lync servers. What I noticed was that it only installed SP1 on RTCLOCAL despite running it against the other instances several times. I decided to run the EXE manually and see what was going on. What it showed me was that the prerequisites failed because of a pending restart following the installation of SP1 to the RTCLOCAL instance. Once I restarted I was able to rerun the commands for the other instances without needing additional reboots. i.e. the Standard Edition FE has two additional instances and I was able to install SP1 to both instances one after the other.
You need to reboot the server after updating each instance. That way the update process completes OK every time.
Wish you had similar instruction on how to upgrade sql express 2012 rtm to sql standard 2012. I installed lync 2013 without pat script – lync 2013 install carried out sql express rtm install. Now, I cannot complete other task in the topology such as archiving/monitoring because sql express does not all these featues to complete – it requires sql standard or enterprise 2012 edition.
Wish you had similar instruction on how to upgrade sql express 2012 rtm to sql standard 2012. I installed lync 2013 without pat script – lync 2013 install carried out sql express rtm install. Now, I cannot complete other task in the topology such as archiving/monitoring because sql express does not all these featues to complete – it requires sql standard or enterprise 2012 edition.
I am going to colocate the archiving/monitoring database to another server that has sql entp 2012 running. I hope it work out.
Ram
I notice you need a restart to have the second one run successfully.
I had to reboot each install of instance. Worked for me! Thx Elan
Thank you for the information.
I've updated a Lync 2013 SE Server the way you described it. Afterwards the script getinfo-SqlServer.ps1 shows that only the rtclocal DB has the SP1 Level. Also my second check with an sql tool shows me the same result.
How can I update the other two instances with sp1?
Best Regards Bueschu
I had this problem in all the deployments where I was using this method. On the problem servers, over the course of several days, I had to re-run the command several times to get the LyncLocal Instance updated. So what I would tell you is, keep trying and eventually it will update.
If you have a look onto the log, you have to restart the server after each instance update