Do multiple Cumulative Updates need to be applied to a single server?

Question

When installing a cumulative update (or Service Pack) for SharePoint 2010 with Project Server 2010, do I need to install the SharePoint Foundation, SharePoint Server, and Project Server cumulative updates, or do cumulative updates contain the fixes for the foundation products they sit on top of? (ie, does the Project Server CU contain the Server and Foundation CU's? Does the SharePoint Server CU contain the Foundation CU?)

Answer 1

For SharePoint 2010 there are three packages released for each CU:

• SharePoint Foundation 2010
• SharePoint Server 2010
• SharePoint Server 2010 with Project Server

You only need to download one of these packages; for instance the Project Server package contains the SharePoint Server and SharePoint Foundation bits.

Answer 2

From the official SharePoint Updates site: http://technet.microsoft.com/nb-no/sharepoint/ff800847.aspx

We recommend that you always install SharePoint Foundation 2010 patches before you install SharePoint Server 2010 patches. This best practice ensures that you will be successful when installing updates.

To me this sounds like you need to download and install both?

Answer 3

In short, Wictor is right, but in light of Haavard's answer, I checked with a friend on the Project Server support team for an official answer.

He said that there are individual packages released for each component (including Project Server, search, PPS, etc). If you go to the official SharePoint Update Center site, and click on the Latest Cumulative Update link, it will take you to a KB article that links to the individual CU packages for each component. It looks like there are 16 separate client CU's and 10 Server CU's. Unless I am blind (which is possible), the updates page does not link to the all-up server update packages.

As Wictor mentioned, in addition to the component CU's, Microsoft also releases an all-up server update roll-up that includes all the fixes for all the server products at the same time. For the life of me, I cannot find a link to it from the SharePoint updates page, but Brian Smith's blog usually points to the latest version of it the Project Server roll-up, and Stefan Goßner's blog is another great resource for finding all 3 SharePoint 2010 Server update packages as they are released.