UPDATE: Thanks to l.torres (Comment #1) for information regarding An update is available to add support for testing the Product Update feature in SQL Server "Denali" CTP3
UPDATE: Hindsight is a wonderful thing. If I had remembered that you can’t upgrade ANY current edition of SQL Server to an evaluation edition, I wouldn’t have wasted time building a SQL Server 2008 R2 VM and then trying to upgrade it to SQL Server 2012 CTP3 Evaluation Edition. I also wouldn’t have written this post :-)
Tonight I decided to look into what work may be required to upgrade our SQL Server 2008 R2 environment (with SSAS, SSIS and SSRS features) to SQL Server 2012 (CTP3). Given that I have a MSDN Subscription, I thought the easiest way of testing this would be to download Windows Server 2008 R2 and SQL Server 2008 R2 Developer Edition and use these to create a Windows Virtual PC. I could then configure my VM to match our development environment and run the SQL Server 2012 CTP3 Upgrade Wizard to see what happens. Well, I hate to say it but this process turned out to be far from easy.
After spending a couple of hours waiting for my downloads to complete (ADSL sucks where I live) and then spending about another hour setting up my VM, my heart broke when the SQL Server 2012 Upgrade Wizard failed with a Rule “SQL Server "Denali" CTP3 Feature Upgrade” failed error. Hmmm, perhaps I should have read the release notes to see what editions could be upgraded. Wait a minute, I did read the release notes and saw nothing about upgrade restrictions!
![clip_image002_thumb[1]](http://beyondrelational.com/cfs-file.ashx/__key/CommunityServer.Blogs.Components.WeblogFiles/jeffwharton/clip_5F00_image002_5F00_thumb1_5F00_thumb_5F00_2D2B2FBD.jpg "clip_image002_thumb[1]")
Ok, maybe I should have run the Upgrade Advisor first. Nope! Did this and it told me that everything was sweet and that there were no issues stopping me from upgrading to CTP3. BTW, to run the upgrade advisor you need to download and install Microsoft® SQL Server® code name ‘Denali’ Transact-SQL ScriptDom CTP 3 (you get told this via a non-hyperlinked URL in a dialog box when you try and run the advisor). Ok, time to read the real CTP3 release notes.
![clip_image002[5]_thumb[1]](http://beyondrelational.com/cfs-file.ashx/__key/CommunityServer.Blogs.Components.WeblogFiles/jeffwharton/clip_5F00_image0025_5F00_thumb1_5F00_thumb_5F00_2668006D.jpg "clip_image002[5]_thumb[1]")
I launched my favourite search tool and searched for Rule SQL Server "Denali" CTP3 Feature Upgrade failed. What I found was a thread on the Microsoft Connect site titled Rule "SQL Server "Denali" CTP3 Feature Upgrade" failed. Here I was told that I can’t upgrade a previous version of SQL Server to SQL Server 2012 Evaluation Edition. Feeling tired and a little miffed, I decided to stop with the upgrade and write this post instead.
![image_thumb[1]](http://beyondrelational.com/cfs-file.ashx/__key/CommunityServer.Blogs.Components.WeblogFiles/jeffwharton/image_5F00_thumb1_5F00_thumb_5F00_474B4D47.png "image_thumb[1]")
It makes me wonder why Microsoft let you select "Evaluation" as an upgrade path when you can't upgrade a previous version of SQL Server to SQL Server 2012 CTP3 Evaluation Edition. Perhaps I’m being a little too critical as I was trying to install a CTP after all. That said, how difficult would it have been to remove the “Evaluation” upgrade path or at least add a line to the release notes which states “You cannot upgrade a previous version of SQL Server to SQL Server 2012 CTP3 Evaluation Edition”.
Anyway, I guess I’ll need to wait until Microsoft releases a Product Key that enables version upgrades.
Night all……