I wanted to point out a quick note about KB 969834 aka the OCS2009-DBUpgrade.msi file – The KB article suggests running the package from your Back-End database server, but if you’re running SQL 2005 x86 you’ll be greeted with the following error:

This installation package is not supported by this processor type.

Basically, the MSI needs to be run from an x64 machine so your only option now is to run the update directly from your Front-End server. If you try to launch from there you might receive this error:

You must install Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Client Tools before you install Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 (KB969834).

You could try install the SQL Tools and Service Pack updates from installation, but OCS is looking for very specific versions of the SQL tools. The quickest and easiest way is to just use a couple of downloads from the Feature Pack for Microsoft SQL Server 2005 – February 2007.

You’ll want to download and install the following on your R2 Front-End before running the update:

• Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Backward Compatibility Components (x64 package)
• Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Management Objects Collection (x64 package)

After running those installers you should be able to run the DB upgrade successfully. Don’t forget – you need to run that MSI from a command line with the poolname (Non-FQDN version) parameter. And if you’re using Server 2008 be sure open the command prompt as Administrator so it runs with elevated rights. Example:

OCS2009-DBUpgrade.msi POOLNAME=MyFirstPool