Slipstreaming April 2013 and after Cumulative Updates, let’s make it possible!

Hello all,

As you probably know by now, April 2013 CU is now out, and since it requires March 2013 PU installed before, it makes a real to slipstream.  Read more here:  http://sharepoint.nauplius.net/2013/04/slipstreaming-the-sharepoint-2013-april-2013-cumulative-update/

I am making this discussion to get ideas from the community on how to be able to slipstream this, since twitter is limited to only 140 characters, and it’s tough to include everyone interested in the conversation.  Furthermore, I think with this occasion we can fix another problem we had  which is.. Slipstreaming Cumulative Updates and Language Packs.   Read more here; http://blogs.msdn.com/b/opal/archive/2011/07/06/be-careful-when-you-use-slipstreamed-sharepoint-installation-files.aspx

This is the order in which I think a SharePoint 2013 farm would be installed:

• Install SharePoint
• install LP’s
• Install March 2013
• Install April 2013
• run psconfig

Since AutoSpInstaller is now the Standard for SharePoint installs, here is what I was working on. I tested with SharePoint 2010 & Language packs, however I believe it could easy be applied to SharePoint 2013. It is not optimized in any way since I was only testing…

1. In the “2010′ folder, I created a folder called “CumulativeUpdates” and we add the cumulative update EXE file.

2. In AutoSPInstallerMain we create a variable for it:

ElseIf ((Test-Path -Path “$bits\2010\SharePoint\setup.exe”) -or ($xmlinput.Configuration.Install.SPVersion -eq “2010”))
{
$env:SPbits = $bits+”\2010\SharePoint”
$env:CUbits = $bits+”\2010\CumulativeUpdates”
}

3.  In AutoSPInstallerMain, under the “InstallLanguagePacks $xmlinput” function, add a call to a function “InstallCumulativeUpdate”.

4. In “AutoSPInstallerFunctionsCustom.ps1” add the function.  Here is what I got at the moment! 

Function InstallCumulativeUpdate
{

Write-Host “Starting Cumulative Update Install” -ForegroundColor Magenta

$patchfile = Get-ChildItem $env:CUbits | where{$_.Extension -eq “.exe”}
if($patchfile -eq $null)
{
Write-Host “Unable to retrieve the file. Exiting Script” -ForegroundColor Red
Return
}
Start-Process “$env:CUbits\$patchfile” -ArgumentList “/passive”
Start-Sleep -seconds 20
$proc = get-process $filename
$proc.WaitForExit()
Write-Host
Write-Host “Cumulative Update installation complete” -foregroundcolor green
Write-Host
}

And AutoSPInstaller runs PSConfig later in the script, which should do it for all.

For SharePoint 2013, we would need 2 folders, one “March2013” and the second, “NextCu” (probably something else, but you know what I mean) and two different functions.

I only tested this for SharePoint 2010 (CU installed fine and everything), but not for 2013 yet .. and that’s why I am posting it as a discussion, and not a blog post :). DO NOT do this in production until it gets confirmed by big names like Trevor Seward, Todd or Brian!

Let’s find a solution!