One of the challenges of applying hotfixes to a distributed application is the order in which you apply them. We have an Active FIM Synchronization Service, and a cold standby. I will leave out the FIM Portal/FIM Service instance. Today we did the upgrade of our lab from FIM 2010 build 4.0.3531.2 (Update 1) to the latest available build: 4.0.3576.2.

I would suspect the order to be something like this:

1. Stop Active FIM Synchronization Service
2. Update the Active FIM Synchronization Service bits
3. Stop Active FIM Synchronization Service (+ disable for safety)
4. Enable Passive FIM Synchronization Service
5. Run MIISActivate
6. Stop “Passive” FIM Synchronization Service
7. Update the “Passive” FIM Synchronization Service bits
8. Stop & Disable FIM Synchronization Service
9. Fall back using MIISActivate again

However when running step 5 we were confronted with two popups: one stating “everything is ok”, followed by one giving the following error code: 0x80230453. A quick google gave no results, and that’s why I’m putting this post here. It might make sense as to why the activation command does not run, after all it’s using old binaries against an updated database…

So here is the order which worked out fine for us:

1. Stop Active FIM Synchronization Service
2. Update the Active FIM Synchronization Service bits
3. Stop Active FIM Synchronization Service (+ disable for safety)
4. Enable Passive FIM Synchronization Service
5. Update the “Passive” FIM Synchronization Service bits
6. Run MIISActivate, test FIM Sync
7. Stop & Disable FIM Synchronization Service
8. Fall back using MIISActivate again