Service packs are very critical and important. In the industry I have seen many people waiting for the first service pack to arrive before moving to opting the product. I often see it as a good practice because there are some unknown bugs or missed enhancements in original product which are later covered in the SP2. I believe it is not limited to SQL Server but pretty much true across most of the softwares. Here is a single suggestion, you may delay adopting the product but must not delay in adopting service packs. As soon as they are released, grab them, test them on your development thoroughly and move to production server after validating.
Microsoft has recently released SQL Server 2008 R2 service packs. Please note these are for SQL Server 2008 R2 and not for SQL Server 2008. They will not work on SQL Server 2008 but will work only on SQL Server 2008 R2. If you have  have a fresh install of SQL Server 2008 R2, you just have to download and install SP2 and there is no need to install SP1 as this service pack is cumulative SP and contains all the previous upgrades of SP1.
Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 2
Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 2 Express Edition
Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 2 Feature Pack
Reference:Â Pinal Dave (https://blog.sqlauthority.com)
11 Comments. Leave new
Nice advice Sir ! You are simply superb !!!! Thanks a lot.
Thanks pinal.
Great, now I have a lot of servers to patch when I get back from vacation :(
Thanks for the heads up, and I completely agree patching is critical. I’m one of the subscribers to the approach of delaying in adopting a new SQL version until it has been out for a while or getting with with its first SP.
“you just have to download and install SP2 and there is no need to install SP1 as this service pack is cumulative SP and contains all the previous upgrades of SP1”
not exactly true – if you’ve installed latest CU for SQL Server 2008R2 SP1 you should wait 1-2 weeks till the CU#1 for SQL Server 2008R2 SP2 is released as the latest 2 CU for SP1 are not included in SP2.
Trying to install SP2 on my server which is currently on RTM, and getting the following error in SQLSysClrTypes_Cpu64_1.log:
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Microsoft SQL Server System CLR Types requires the .NET Framework version 2.0 or 3.0 or 3.5 or 4.0. Ensure that this requirement is fulfilled before installing Microsoft SQL Server System CLR Types.
Action ended 8:18:59: CA_ErrorPrereqDotNet20Or30Or35Or40. Return value 3.
*******************************************************************************************
BUT, 2.0, 3.0, and 3.5 are all installed. Any ideas?
I have SQL 2008 R2 SP1 Failover Cluster on Win 2008 R2 SP2 64x. To upgrade to the SQL Server 2008 R2 SP2, do I need to uninstall the SP1 first or can I simply apply the SP2 on top of it?
yes, we can directly apply SP2 on SP1. No need to uninstall .
I tried to install service pack 2 on MS SQL Server 2008 r2 RTM but I am getting error. Please check the below error code and suggest.
Error result: 595541211
Error code: 49957Error: Failed to run patch request for instance: MSSQLSERVER (exit code: -595541211)Please help me here and let me know if required any other info
hi Anamika
are you using a SQL Cluster ?
if not please check if the installation media is not corrupted
see the following thread on MS Forums:
hi ,
when should i apply sql server 2008 service pack, before or after upgrading my os to windows server 2012 r2 , currently i m using windows server 2008 r2
thanks in advance
Bridj – Doesn’t matter. Both are independent. Please test OS migration.