In this demonstration we will show migrating Windows Server Update Services from a server running Windows Server 2008 R2 to one running Windows Server 2012.

Essentially well be going through four processes, one being migrating the WSUS update binaries, two, backing up the WSUS database on Windows Server 2008 R2, three, restoring said database to Windows Server 2012 with Windows Server Update Services installed and four, running a post install process to regenerate our encryption key.

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Firstly what were going to do is literally copy using any preferred method we like our WSUS content folder containing all of our update information from our Server 2008 box to our 2012 box. In this case Im literally using a copy process to go to the server named member and paste WSUS content over the top of what currently exists as weve already installed WSUS on this server but we havent configured it as yet in preparation for migration.

Now that we have copied the content across to our Server 2012 box well use SQL Server 2008 R2 Management Studio to go to the SUS DB on our Windows Server 2008 R2 WSUS server and perform a back up of that using a copy only procedure. What well do here is remove the default location for the backup and well change it to a location on our C Drive. In this case weve created a folder called WSUS backup on the root of the C Drive and well name the file name SUSDB.bak, now that weve configured it well hit ok and this will proceed to backup the contents of the WSUS database to this local location on the Windows Server 2008 R2 WSUS server. Once that is completed we will again literally copy the SUS DB.back file to a location on the new Windows Server 2012 WSUS server that we set up previously. Once weve done that we can go to our Windows Server 2012 WSUS Server and restore the database over the top of the existing default one. Notice in both of these examples were using the Windows internal database rather than a full blown SQL Server. The procedure for doing this in a full blown SQL Server is very similar still utilizing a backup process on the source WSUS server and utilizing a restoration process on the destination SQL Server.

In our case this is a SUS database with around 3 GB of data which takes a small amount of time to copy to the windows Server 2012 Server. We are now ready to do the database restoration on Server 2012.

Back on our Server 2012 machine now were opening up SQL Server Management Studio and were executing a command to drop the SUS DB from the local installation of WSUS because we no longer need this, what we are then going to do is run a database restoration procedure bringing the SUS database from the Windows Server 2008 R2 WSUS server and restoring it into our Windows Server 2012 environment. This will unfortunately result in GUId issues and will require the regeneration of the encryption key for the WSUS server running on Windows Server 2012.

When we execute this particular statement it will take some time to do the restoration and then it will result in a number of error messages. These error messages specifically schema verification failed for database SUS DB as well as restore database is terminating normally are completely normal and these relate to the GUId issues and encryption key issues I mentioned before.

We can easily fix this by opening up an elevated command prompt in Windows Server 2012 and executing a WSUS util post install command. As part of this command we will point to the new location of our WSUS content which will then effectively restore the database to a state where we can re-engineer the encryption key and begin serving updates with this server.

Now that we have completed our restoration with the appropriate error messages you can see the WSUS util command that I referred to before, now this process does take some time, effectively what it is doing is checking the consistency of the database as it currently stands and then runs some alternate database statements to ensure that the database can be mounted appropriately as well as ensuring that the new content location is accurately reflected inside the database.

Once this procedure finishes we will then need to execute a PowerShell script against the WSUS server. This PowerShell script will examine the existing GUID and generate a new GUID applying it to this particular server, allowing it to start effectively and provide updates to end machines. Once this particular PowerShell has been executed we then need to perform one final WSUS util post install command and this will then generate our new encryption key. Once this is complete, we should if everything has gone correctly be able to open up the WSUS server console on this particular machine and see all of the updates in place as we would expect from our previous installation on Windows Server 2008 R2 the process does take a little bit of time to complete as we can see, but once it does complete we should be able to open up that quite easily. The only thing remaining to do would be then to take this WSUS server and assume the same identity as that of the Windows Server 2008 R2 machine that was up until now providing WSUS Services.

We would turn off the old WSUS server and we would change this 2012 servers name to the same as the 2008 WSUS server and then mymachines would start updating from here.

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