Introducing Package Conversion Manager (PCM) 2.0 Beta: ConfigMgr 2012 SP1 Support

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As I’ve outlined in the past, System Center Configuration Manager 2012 and Package Conversion Manager (PCM) are very tightly integrated.  This integration creates a situation whereby any major updates to the ConfigMgr 2012 product requires the PCM team to update PCM.  Yesterday, our team released the PCM 2.0 Beta that aims at fully supporting ConfigMgr SP1 Beta which released as well.

It goes without saying that we would like to have everyone who is working with SP1 to please download the PCM 2.0 bits and give them a test.  In the coming days, I will release several blogs that outline how to effectively test scenarios for PCM allowing you to do so against our 1.0 release or the 2.0 beta release. 

The PCM 2.0 release will release at the same time as the Configuration Manager 2012 SP1 releases and as a PCM user you should follow closely the plans for SP1 Beta.

What’s New in PCM 2.0

For the most part the PCM 2.0 code-base goes unchanged however we have fixed several bugs and they newest functionality is to support Configuration Manager 2012 SP1.  For the SP1 Beta release of PCM, it will only work with the ConfigMgr 2012 SP1 Beta bits and will fail to work if you download it and test against Configuration Manager 2012 RTM.  This is not our long-term plans as we envision 2.0 being a single binary that supports all Configuration Manager 2012 platforms including RTM and SP1.

Getting Started with PCM Learning

To get you started with learning PCM, I wanted to provide you some references that exist now and I will update this blog in the future to support the new ones as they come online.

To learn more from Microsoft TechNet, view the PCM TechNet online documentation.

Downloading PCM 2.0 for System Center Configuration Manager 2012 SP1 Beta

As mentioned above, we’ve provided all testers of SP1 Beta the opportunity to download our PCM 2.0 and to test the scenarios in your environments.  We will provide key scenarios and capabilities to everyone via blogs very soon but for now get started by downloading the bits on the Microsoft Connect site.

Enjoy!

Thanks,

-Chris