In early 2012, Microsoft released a newly combined suite of products under the System Center 2012 name. One of those products, System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) has greatly matured over the years and is an enterprise grade desktop management tool designed to streamline what can be an onerous task. SCCM 2012 brought with it a number of enhancements intended to make the product more user-centric and more usable.

In January of 2013, Microsoft finally released Service Pack 1 for System Center 2012. Besides adding support for Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012, the SCCM 2012 SP1 update added some new features.

Unfortunately, it also introduces some challenges, particularly if you’re using your SCCM environment. Specifically, you may discover that updates have stopped, well, updating. In addition, you may discover that the following error message is being written to SCCM logs: “Site component manager failed to install this component, because it either can’t find or can’t configure Windows Server Update Services (WSUS). Possible cause, WSUS service is not installed or running”. You will also see errors 1016 and 4968 in the SMS_WSUS_CONTROL_MANAGER component.

The culprit: After you upgrade SCCM to SP1, you need to apply two updates to your SCCM servers. Without these patches, you will see errors in your installation and you will be unable to create additional Software Update Points.

The updates are:

I can personally attest to the need for these two patches. I just ran into this very issue at a client site and applying the updates did, in fact, correct the issue.

More changes to WSUS

In addition, there have been some changes in WSUS in Windows Server 2012. In older versions of WSUS, the default communications ports were ports 80 and 443. In Windows Server 2012, the new default ports for WSUS communication are ports 8530 (HTTP) and 8531 (HTTPS). There have been some reports that SCCM, after the application of SP1, may change the WSUS/SUP port configuration. If you’re having trouble with WSUS and SCCM 2012, check these settings out, too.