OK - so Rollup 2 for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 is officially out!  I know I'm a bit behind in blogging about this.  But I thought I'd touch on a few things you should keep in mind.

Before I get to that - here is a link to the download, and here is a link to Greg Nichol's blog on Rollup 2.  Greg's post has some very informative Q&A.  This is what I'd like to touch on.

 1.  Rollup 2 CANNOT be uninstalled.  So make sure you back up your MSCRM and METABASE databases prior to installation.  If something blows up, you can reinstall CRM with the backed up databsase.  Of course, that won't be an option even one day later, once there is new data entered in the database.

2.  All post Rollup 2 fixes will require Rollup 2 to be installed.  This was not the case with Rollup 1. This will be very important to understand - if you have an issue that calls for a hotfix, you will need Rollup 2 in your environment in order to install the fix.

3.  Customizations exported from a CRM system with Rollup 2 installed cannot be import to a CRM system that does not have Rollup 2 installed (and vice versa).  This is very important to keep in mind, for folks who work extensively in Dev.  If you are using Dev to test customizations, etc., and you test out Rollup 2 in Dev prior to rolling out in Prod (great idea), you will not be able to publish these Dev customizations in Production until after you apply Rollup 2.  Why would that matter?

Well - let's say you want to test Rollup 2 extensively.  Which could take a while.  Then add in your change control window - let's say it's one day a month.  If you hit that window in Production, but are not yet ready to apply Rollup 2 (and you have in Dev), you will have to wait to apply any customizations you may have done on your Rollup 2 Dev environment.  Just something to keep in mind here.

None of this is really daunting, or a reason to hold off on Rollup 2.  I'm just suggesting you test thoroughly, with a good plan in place for this process.  If you have a separate Staging environment, that may be the best place to test out your Rollup 2 deployment.  That way, you can keep Dev and Production removed from Rollup 2 until you are ready to deploy.  Just make sure to deploy it to all environments, once you are ready.

Download Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 Rollup 2
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=81674da5-ffef-492a-a7b1-7e1f1951b05f&displaylang=en

Greg Nichols' post on CRM 3.0 Rollup 2
http://blogs.msdn.com/crm/archive/2007/06/22/update-rollup-2-for-microsoft-dynamics-v3-0.aspx