AX 2012 - Slipstreaming a Cumulative update

Recently I wrote about the release of CU1 for Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012.

This is the first cumulative update to be released, for AX 2012, that includes a number of fixes. Cumulative updates, are packaged hotfixes that are meant to fix a set of specific issues.

With the release of Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012, a new concept of "Slipstreaming" updates exists. I made brief mention to this new way of applying updates, in my previous article.

Now the Microsoft EMEA Support team blog was recently updated, with exactly how this can be done for CU1: How can I slipstream Cumulative Updates for AX 2012 as part of a new installation

The above link, will talk you directly through the process of taking the contents from the CU1 release, how to correctly create the sub-folder, under the new updates folder for AX 2012, and deploy the content of the update into that folder.

It's worth to note here, that things that Cumulative updates, as well as service packs are going to be released in such a way, that they can be slipstreamed and applied in such a fashion. However hotfixes will continue to have their own manual instructions for applying said updates, that will most likely not be able to be apart of this slipstream process.

Just to be clear, for everyone, on how this works.: Microsoft works the community, be that Customer or Partner and discovers a bug, or they discover it themselves. A hotfix for that specific bug is created. Then after a set amount of hotfixes are generated, a cumulative updates is created. Typically the cumulative updates contain the previous cumulative update hotfixes. This means, that CU2, when released will actually contain CU1 fixes. From here, after a certain time frame, based on product road map, and market feedback / demand, services packs are released, that bring together all previous cumulative updates, and sometimes also have new feature adds.

So in short: Hotfixes -> Cumulative Updates -> Service Packs.

The idea, behind the slipstream process, is to cut down on the amount of setups one would have to run. In the past, if for example you want to deploy AX 2009, Service Pack 1, CU8. Well the process would be to run the RTM setup, then the SP1 setup and finally the CU8 setups.

With the slipstream process, you deploy the install contents from the ISO file for Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 to a network share, add to the Updates folder as described in the above mentioned support post, and there is a single setup that has to be executed.

That's all for now, but check back soon as more to come. Till next time!



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