How to patch MOSS 2007 - summary

Written by Administrator

Tuesday, 15 September 2009 11:17

Full procedure can be found detailed @ Microsoft's site here but to synthesize I would consider the following:

Important: If you know what and how, i reccomend you article about minimal downtime patching: Patch with minimal downtime

1. Back up the server farm before you start the software update installation. Create a backup of search and all databases. Have on mind that configuration DB and Admin DB cannot be restored in case of need, see: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/948725/en-us

To backup Configuration of your farm you have to do following:

You can use farm-level backups of a running farm taken with System Center Data Protection Manager to recover an entire farm, including the configuration database and Central Administration content database. For more information, see How to Recover a Windows SharePoint Services Farm (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=102831).

You can restore a backup of the configuration database and Central Administration content database taken from a fully stopped farm. For more information, see Move all databases to a new server (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=118325

2. Check the status of Timer Jobs. When you first installed Office SharePoint Server 2007 on your server farm, if you used an upgrade method — either in-place or gradual — and upgrade jobs remain in progress, the software update installation might fail. You must verify that none of the upgrade processes are running. Go to the SharePoint Central Administration site, click Operations, and in the Global Configuration section click Timer job status. If any upgrade jobs are listed, you must allow the upgrade to complete before you install the software update.

3. Check If there are orphaned objects in the content databases — orphans are items that do not have any parent or child relationships — the software update installation fails. To ensure that the installation succeeds, you must either fix the relationship of objects or drop the orphans before you begin the software update installation.

To detect orphaned items, use the following syntax:

stsadm -o databaserepair -url http://<URL_of_WindowsSharePointServices_Site> -databasename <name of database that contains the orphan item>

To delete orphaned items, use the following syntax:

stsadm -o databaserepair -url http://<URL_of_WindowsSharePointServices_Site> -databasename <name of database that contains the orphan item that is to be deleted> -deletecorruption

4. If you customized a predefined site template by directly modifying the site template files — an action that Microsoft does not recommend — the software update installation might overwrite some of the files that you modified, and your customizations in those files will be lost. You must reapply any site-template customizations after you install the software update.

So this was an easy part, just preparation for your patching, lets continue bellow with actual patching, where somehting can actually happen.

5. Stop the World Wide Web publishing service (W3SVC) on all front-end Web servers to disconnect all the users from the server farm. In server farms with multiple front-end Web servers, if you allow users to connect after the files and databases have been updated on one Web server but not on other Web servers, users cannot browse the Web sites.

6. Download and install the appropriate Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 software update for all servers in your server farm. If it fails during installation of binaries due to corrupted DB, check here the sollution.
(Don’t run the SharePoint Products and Technologies Configuration Wizard yet.)

Microsoft recommends that you first install the software update on an application server that is hosting the Central Administration Web site, then on the other application servers, and finally on the front-end Web servers. If you are hosting your Central Administration Web site on a front-end Web server, it is recommended that you first install the software update on the front-end Web server that is hosting the Central Administration Web site, then on the application servers, and finally on the remaining front-end Web servers.

7. Download and install the appropriate Office SharePoint Server 2007 software update for all servers in your server farm.

At the end of the software update installation, the SharePoint Products and Technologies Configuration Wizard starts.

When the dialog box about installation in a server farm opens, do not click OK. Instead, leave each server with the following dialog box displayed:

You must run Setup to install new binary files for every server in your server farm. If you have multiple servers in your server farm, run Setup and the configuration wizard on the other servers now, and then return to this server and click OK to continue.

8. When the dialog box from the previous step is displayed on all the application servers and Web servers in the server farm, use one Web server that hosts the Central Administration Web site to finalize the installation.

9. After you finish updating one Web server that hosts the Central Administration Web site, follow the procedures in the Verify update completion and success section in this article to ensure that the software update installation on this one Web server was successful.

10. Continue updating the remaining computers in the server farm, one at a time, by clicking OK in the dialog box.

When the software update installation and configuration is complete on all the Web servers in the server farm, make the Web servers available to users by manually starting the World Wide Web Publishing service on each server on which you manually stopped the service.

Important: I higly reccomend to read following article about faster and better patching of the farm. Patch with minimal downtime

If you have additionals problems with index propagation, check here for solution.

Cheers