If you’re like me, you try to keep your SharePoint servers relatively up to date, certainly with respect to the major service packs. Just about all of my servers are at service pack 2. In the past, my procedure has always been to install the slipstreamed Office with SP1, and then apply both the WSS and MOSS Service Pack 2 patches. The reason for this is that there is (inexplicably) no slipstreamed version for SP2, and I’ve been far too lazy to build my own.
Now versions prior to Service Pack 2 are incompatible with Windows Server 2008 R2. The problem is that the installer is very aware of this incompatibility, and it actually blocks any attempt to install the SP1 install with a message that looks like this:
This referenced KB article isn’t terribly helpful, as it describes a different scenario. When upgrading from a previous version to 2008 R2, you get a warning message that you can safely ignore if you already have SP2 applied (mentioned in an earlier post). Unfortunately in this case, when installing on a fresh 2008 R2 Server, there’s no button for “Yes, I understand there’s a problem and I promise to install SP2 as soon as I’m done”.
Time to build that Slipstream for R2.
It’s actually really easy. I’ll describe the procedure for MOSS,but it’s just fewer steps for WSS.
1. Extract your media to somewhere on your file system (Folder1). If your media is an ISO image,you can use WinRAR to extract it, if it’s a physical disc, just copy it, and if it’s an EXE you can use the extract switch as in “OfficeServerwithSP1.exe /extract:C:Folder1”
2. Download the WSS SP2 and the MOSS SP2 packs for your architecture, or both architectures (if you want a “master” slipstream).
3. Extract the WSS and the MOSS packs to their own folders, Folder2 and Folder3 respectively, using the extract switch described in step 1
4. The “Folder1” folder will have an x64 and an x86 folder for both architectures. Navigate to the relevant architecture and locate the Updates folder. Then copy the contents of Folder2 and Folder3 into the updates folder, allowing overwrites.
That’s it. You can now run setup and install MOSS.
