SharePoint Portal 2003 SP2 deployment issue

As SharePoint Portal Server 2003 SP2 has recently released, and I have seen at least two cases where the deployment is unsuccessful due to a Database Schema Upgrade failure, I thought I would share this

KEEP IN MIND THAT THE KB IS IN THE PROCESS OF BEING UPDATED

I’m just trying to ensure that you are aware of the issue, in case you run into this before the KB is updated.

· When you upgrade your SharePoint Portal Server 2003 Web Front Ends with SP2, you may receive an informational event similar to the following in your Application Event Logs

Event Type: Information

Event Source: SharePoint Portal Administration Service

Event Category: None

Event ID: 601

Date: 10/26/2005

Time: 6:38:01 PM

User: N/A

Computer: KEITHSCOMPUTERTHATYOUCANTHAVETHENAMEOF

Description:

Attempted to apply update to SharePoint Portal Server 2003 portal sites.

   Number of portal sites: 2

   Number of portal sites attempted: 1

   Number of portal sites successfully updated: 1

   Not run: 1

Consult the ReadMe file included with this patch, or *_spsadmin.log for more details.

For more information, see Help and Support Center at https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.

Data:

0000: 41 00 70 00 70 00 44 00 A.p.p.D.

0008: 6f 00 6d 00 61 00 69 00 o.m.a.i.

0010: 6e 00 3a 00 20 00 73 00 n.:. .s.

0018: 70 00 73 00 61 00 64 00 p.s.a.d.

0020: 6d 00 69 00 6e 00 2e 00 m.i.n...

0028: 65 00 78 00 65 00 e.x.e.

· Notice that this is an “Information” event, and not even an error. In my testing, I was not even notified that there was a problem.

o There is a KB that references this problem (907308 You cannot restart a SharePoint Portal Server 2003 database upgrade https://support.microsoft.com/?id=907308 ), but it currently does not provide enough detail to help you determine the cause of the problem. It is also missing some very important information necessary to properly kick SharePoint into performing the database upgrade as follows:

§ The KB is missing a statement that the following registry key must also be updated.

· HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\SharePoint Portal Server\2.0\TargetSchemaVersion_Portal

§ This registry must be set to the proper TARGET schema version before the SPSAdmin service is restarted.

· The proper value should be value to be 2.0.40.1

§ For RTM and SP1, the columns in the PortalSchemaVersion should be:

· ShemaVersion 2.0.40.0

· BuildVersion 11.0.5704.0

§ After SP2 is installed, the PortalSchemaVersion values for ALL the portals databases (The _SITE, _PROF, and _SERV databases) should be:

· ShemaVersion 2.0.40.1

· BuildVersion 11.0.8126.0

§ The KB also does not state that you need to review all the SharePoint Portal Server 2003 logs to look for any specific reason for failure and correct before you set the database update trigger values again.

§ If you look in the Application Logs though, the 601 event does lead you to review the SPAdmin logs

Once you get the TargetSchemaVersion_Portal set properly, Restare the SharePoint Administration Service and the upgrade will execute