System Center 2012 Configuration Manager SP1 – Don’t install it in production if downloaded from MSDN or Technet, wait until General Availability.

There’s been a lot of talk lately about System Center 2012 Configuration Manager Service Pack 1 being released to MSDN and Technet and I (like a lot of people) have downloaded and installed it in my lab.

The key part of that sentence above is ‘in my lab‘.

It is not permitted by Microsoft to install System Center 2012 Configuration Manager SP1 in production if you downloaded it from either of these two locations:-

• MSDN
• Technet

but why ?

The answer is found here on Microsofts’ MSDN site and it explains that you are not permitted to install this software in Production (highlighted in red below).

In fact what you can also clearly see from the screenshot above  is that you are better off using a MSDN subscription in regards to testing the software in your LAB from a licensing perspective.

The moral of the story is you have to wait until General Availability  to get System Center 2012 Configuration Manager Service Pack 1 and download it from the Volume Licensing site (or appropriate) to use in production, don’t use the MSDN or Technet versions of the software in production, it’s not allowed by Microsoft.

related reading:

• www.windows-noob.com/forums/index.php?/topic/6518-release-date-sp1/
• http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/dataprotectionmanager/thread/35a8d34e-1891-47c4-b1f8-64f4511c14ee/

cheers

niall