Upgrade Window Server 2012 R2

Question

Hi All

i have a windows server 2012R2 in Azure, can i perform an inplace upgrade to Windows Server 2016. My question is, for a VM hosted in azure can i do an inplace upgrade.

if i cannot then can i create a snapshot from the VM, create a managed disk, mount it on hyperv upgrade to 2016 and swap the OS drive from Azure

Answer 1

Hi @Glenn Maxwell

Complementing what Jimmy said, the inplace upgrade is not possible,
But you can do these steps:

download your VM,
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/windows/download-vhd?tabs=azure-portal

deploy to your onpremise Hyper-v,

upgrade,
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/get-started/perform-in-place-upgrade

generalize the VM and upload to Azure.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/windows/upload-generalized-managed

Reference: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-US/troubleshoot/azure/virtual-machines/in-place-system-upgrade#method-2-download-and-upgrade-the-vhd
Get in touch if you need more help with this issue.

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Answer 2

Take a snapshot of the primary partition
create a disk from snapshot
mount it on hyperv (attach the disk to another Azure VM which has hyperV installed. Create VM and attach this disk)
perform the upgrade
deattach the disk
swap OS disk of the current VM with this upgraded Disk.

if i perform the above step is it not enough , do i need to run sysprep?

Answer 3

Hi Glen,

Sorry the inplace upgrades are not supported please check the workaround for this process over here. in-place-system-upgrade

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