Notes on the Windows 8.1 Update for Windows Server 2012 R2

Microsoft has released the Windows 8.1 Update to MSDN subscribers and is due to be released today to the general public. This update also applies to Windows Server 2012 R2 servers and includes some important updates, including one that will be required so that Windows 8.1 and Windows Server 2012 R2 computers will continue to receive important security updates.

The Windows 8.1 Update (no number, as if there will never be another) is actually a series of 6 updates which should be installed in a certain order.  I created an installer batch file that installs the updates for Windows Server 2012 R2 in the recommended order with minimal output.

Copy the following text to Notepad and save it as Install.bat in the same folder as all the x64 patch files:

start /wait Windows8.1-KB2919442-x64.msu /quiet /norestart
start /wait Windows8.1-KB2919355-x64.msu /quiet /norestart
start /wait Windows8.1-KB2932046-x64.msu /quiet /norestart
start /wait Windows8.1-KB2937592-x64.msu /quiet /norestart
start /wait Windows8.1-KB2938439-x64.msu /quiet /norestart
start /wait Windows8.1-KB2949621-v2-x64.msu /quiet /norestart
@echo Please restart the computer now.

And here's a version for Windows 8.1 x86:

start /wait Windows8.1-KB2919442-x86.msu /quiet /norestart
start /wait Windows8.1-KB2919355-x86.msu /quiet /norestart
start /wait Windows8.1-KB2932046-x86.msu /quiet /norestart
start /wait Windows8.1-KB2937592-x86.msu /quiet /norestart
start /wait Windows8.1-KB2938439-x86.msu /quiet /norestart
start /wait Windows8.1-KB2949621-v2-x86.msu /quiet /norestart
@echo Please restart the computer now.

Once you install the update and restart the computer you'll immediately notice that the Windows App Store icon is on your taskbar.

Windows App Store is added to the Windows 2012 R2 Taskbar

If you're running Windows Server 2012 R2 and signed in the the Admin account you'll find that the Store won't open and gives the error, "This app can't open. Store can't be opened using the Built-in Administrator account. Sign in with a different account and try again." Doh! Right-click the icon and unpin it from the taskbar to recover that real estate.

This dawg won't hunt

It's interesting to see Microsoft slowly unraveling the "Modern UI" to behave more like the desktop UI. They've added a power button to the Modern UI desktop so users can easily shutdown or restart the computer and added a search icon because users didn't intuitively know that they can just start typing to search.