SharePoint – The first CU for SharePoint 2013 is mandatory

Few months after the RTM of SharePoint 2013, Microsoft has released the first CU for SharePoint 2013 – March 2013 PU (public update).

This update is MANDATORY for being able to install later SharePoint updates.

The update size is very big (650 Mo for SharePoint Foundation 2013, 1.6 Gb for SharePoint Server).

I highly recommend to those who don’t have yet deployed SharePoint 2013 to do a slipstream installation, meaning updating the installation media with the CU because it’s taking lot of time to install it and you must have lot of free disk space on system drive.

To do a slipstream you can follow http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ronalg/archive/2011/07/11/slipstream-sharepoint-2010-sp1-and-language-packs-w-sp1-into-rtm.aspx as the process is identical for SharePoint 2013.

You can download the March 2013 PU for SharePoint 2013 at the following locations:

• SharePoint Foundation 2013 http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=36987
• SharePoint Server 2013 http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=36989
• Project Server 2013 http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=36988

All PU are cumulative, meaning the PU for SharePoint Server contains the PU for Foundation.

Don’t forget to run the Configuration Wizard after the installation.