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I have been asked to test service pack 1 for ArcMap 10.1 before it is provided to other users at my university. Are there any key things I should do for any SP test, or should I try to look at things that have specifically been addressed in this SP?

My plan was to create a new .mxd file and run a few basic geoprocessing commands. Realistically I'm not going to able to check everything, but are there other key things I should do?

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I would suggest testing those things that most of your users may use. The service pack Issues Addressed page is grouped by application theme (e.g. ArcGIS for Desktop, ArcGIS for Server...etc) to help you test against.

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    As artwor21 suggests. Find some users from different areas. Ask for some ideas of normal tasks and processes they perform. Especially any third party software used.
    – Brad Nesom
    Jan 29, 2013 at 2:55
  • This answer and comment have made me think about the type of information I should be collecting from our users. I don't currently have details of specific issues users have had, so my main concern was that installation of the SP might have unintended consequences (is that likely?). I ran through a few basic geoprocessing commands, ran a couple of python scripts using shps and gdbs, and used Spatial Ecology's GME, as these are the sorts of things people seem to do here.
    – Flo Harrison
    Jan 30, 2013 at 11:15
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The big new features at 10.1 SP1:

A more easily digestible list is here: What's new in ArcGIS 10.1 service packs

Specifically for geoprocessing: What's new in geoprocessing in ArcGIS 10.1 service packs

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One major update with ArcGIS 10 SP1 is 64-Bit Background Geoprocessing, available as a separate download here. There are major implications for any organization that process big-data:

This 64-bit installation (which requires a 64-bit operating system) will replace your current background processing. All scripts, models and tools which execute in the background will use a 64-bit process. Your biggest benefit when using 64-bit Background processing is that using 64-bit applications allow your large processes to take advantage of more memory (if available) than when using a 32-bit application.

I think you will find a lot of interest in this new feature and it would be easy to incorporate this into a presentation. I've personally had great success using 64-bit background geoprocessing on memory expansive operations such as Integrate, where 32-bit processing had previously failed.

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Regarding 10.1 SP1 bugs, we discovered one that caused us major headaches. I'm not sure if it affects every installation, but it was a problem on three of our computers. See a description of problem and cause on the Esri discussion forum, http://forums.arcgis.com/threads/72244-ArcMap-10.1-SP1-crashing-frequently.

In a nutshell: Having the Georeferencing Toolbar turned on, and rasters loaded in the map document, eventually causes crashing.

sarah

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One thing not mentioned already is that if you kept a record of outstanding bugs (and enhancements) that your users have been affected by (or were looking for) in 10.1 (and earlier releases), then that list is what I would recommend testing first.

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There is an annoying bug in 10.1 that when you issue the exact same GET request / QueryTask to ArcGIS Server, it fails on alternate requests. Looks like it may be fixed in for SP2. @Derek Swingley who works for Esri pointed this out. NIM086349 http://forums.arcgis.com/threads/72894-Etags-and-Intermittent-QueryTask-Server-Errors

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  • I think this would be better as a Comment because it is hard to test something fixed in 10.1 SP2 using 10.1 SP1 :-)
    – PolyGeo ♦
    Jan 29, 2013 at 23:24

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