Update Rollup 2 for Windows Server 2012 Essentials is available, testing on my busy server underway

Update Rollup 1 came out in February 2013, and I closely documented my experience with it. But there was a gotcha. I had used the method of connector installation where you skip the domain join. So, with the June 13 2013 release of Update Rollup 2 that I applied tonight

This update rollup contains server-side fixes. After you apply this update rollup, the client-side package is installed on all client computers automatically. The Update Rollup 2 client-side package (2824163) is the same as Update Rollup 1 client-side package (2781268).

my worry was that history would repeat itself, and I'd have some clean-up to do on all 12 of the connected client PCs and VMs.

While it does provide a few fixes, indeed, Update Rollup 2 proved to behave much the same. I did wind up having to do the extra steps of having to re-disable the “Windows Server LAN Configuration” service on all clients, then setting their DNS settings back to automatic (instead of the IP address of my WS2012E system). Not a bit deal, but with 12 PCs, still tiresome. This workaround is described in full detail at TinkerTry.com/ws2012e-dns-fix, and is still workable. But it'd be nice to have a more elegant way of handling this, since Microsoft seems to not be fixing this issue, despite promises. Maybe Windows Server 2012 R2 Essentials will finally get it squared away, which I'll likely be testing pretty soon.

Meanwhile, here's the video walk-through, demonstrating the installation of Rollup 2, and the automatic client installation it quickly pushes out to all connected systems, followed by the DNS clean-up I had to do. And the client PCs did get some pop-up nag screens, asking them to reboot, even though all other alerts were disabled.

At least I now know that most of my remote client systems can surf the web, even if I take my Windows Server 2012 Essentials down for a bit. See also Microsoft TechNet tip here.