Cumulative Update 3 for Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 on June 28, 2012. This release includes all previously released Cumulative Updates for Dynamics AX 2012 plus additional hotfixes and improvements based on feedback from our customers and partners.
It is recommended to read the release notes prior to installation of Microsoft Dynamics AX2012 Cumulative Update 3 (6.0.1108.670).
Cumulative updates, as well as service packs are now be released intop be slipstreamed. However hotfixes will continue to have their own manual instructions for applying said updates, that will most likely not be able to be apart of this slipstream process.
A hotfix for a specific bug is created. Then after a set amount of hotfixes are generated, a cumulative updates is created. Typically the cumulative updates contain the previous cumulative update hotfixes. This means, that CU3, will actually contain CU1 and CU2 fixes.
From here, after a certain time frame, based on product road map, and market feedback / demand, services packs are released, that bring together all previous cumulative updates, and sometimes also have new feature adds.
Hotfixes -> Cumulative Updates -> Service Packs.
The idea, behind the slipstream process, is to cut down on the amount of setups to run. In the past, if for example to deploy AX 2009, Service Pack 1, CU8l the process was o run the RTM setup, then the SP1 setup and finally the CU8 setups.
With the slipstream process, you deploy the install contents from the ISO file for Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 to a network share, add to the Updates folder as described in the above mentioned support post, and there is a single setup that has to be executed.
