Microsoft has just released Service Pack 2 for Windows Server 2003. Note that this also upgrades Windows XP x64 to Service Pack 2. As usual, it’s a cumulative update, i.e. if you build Windows 2003 with no service pack then you can bring it up to date by applying this service pack and any post SP2 updates.
There’s a whole bunch of releases:
- X86 Installer
- X86 Checked Build
- X86 ISO Image
- Itanium Installer
- Itanium Checked Build
- X64 Installer
- X64 Checked Build
- X64 ISO Image
There’s also some deployment preparation tools available:
- KB Analyser Tool for Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2 Deployment: After you install Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Service Pack (SP2), the system does not trust binaries that are installed by out-of-band updates. (An out-of-band update is an update that Microsoft makes available outside the regular product shipment cycle.) The Oobmig.exe tool restores trust to these out-of-band updates. There is also an Itanium version.
- Hotfix Scan Tool for Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2: You can use this tool to scan for hotfixes that will potentially regress after you install Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2.
- System Preparation Tool for Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2: This is an updated version of Sysprep. There is an x86 and x64 version.
The Support Tools have also been updated:
Have a read of the document that I wrote on Windows 2003/Windows XP x64 SP2 while it was still in beta if you want to know what is included and how to deploy it.