file – though given how "compressed" it is, I have to wonder why they continue to place this package in a self-extracting archive in the first place.) (At which point, you can delete the 455715. Once done, the folder should end up looking like this. You need to extract 455715_intl_圆4_zip.exe by double-clicking on it and choosing the output path (using /x at the command line is valid, but ignored).
For example, when you first download Service Pack 1 and Cumulative Update 1, the download folder will look like this: Note that any update you get with the filename _zip.exe, you need to extract out to get the core executable. You just need to put all of the relevant updates in the same folder. The new method, which you should be using, is much simpler – and doesn't require you to manually extract the packages using the /x argument first: D:\setup.exe /Action=Install /UpdateSource=C:\AllUpdatesFolder So while you can still use the old method if you wanted: D:\setup.exe /Action=Install /PCUSource=C:\SP1ExtractedFolder /CUSource=C:\CU1ExtractedFolder This method is deprecated, but it is still supported in SQL Server 2012. SQL Server 2012 setup is much better about slipstreaming both service packs and cumulative updates than SQL Server 2008 / 2008 R2 (described by Peter Saddow here and here). When you are installing a new instance of SQL Server, you want to perform as few steps as possible. If SQL Server 2012 is not already installed… UPDATE – SQL Server 2012 Service Pack 1 Cumulative Update 2 () was released. This isn't strictly a performance-related post, but some of the information does involve service disruptions, which may or may not affect your business, SLAs, etc. Since many people have waited – based on mostly speculative bias at this point – to even start testing SQL Server 2012 until Service Pack 1 was released, I thought it might be useful to cover a couple of the scenarios you might come across. The reason for this is that the service pack – due to longer development and regression testing cycles – did not contain any of the fixes from RTM Cumulative Updates 3 & 4. Recently, Microsoft pushed out Service Pack 1 for SQL Server 2012, and they quickly followed up with Cumulative Update 1 for Service Pack 1.