Upgrade from ERP 6.0 EHP3 to ERP 6.0 EHP7

Dear All,

We are planning to upgrade our ERP SYSTEMS from ehp3 to ehp7

Technical info:

Erp 6.0 ehp3

Netweaver 700 SPS23

Kernel 721_ext_rel

Database : SQL Server 2008r2

Windows : server 2008r2 sp1 Enterprise Edition

On existing platform I'd like to upgrade our sap server. While generating upgrade stack file in Solman MOPZ selecting Kernel 742 Unicode.

But the problem is Kernel 742 doesn't support SQL SERVER 2008R2..

Kernel 741 does support our existing platforms.So, Is there any way to select/change Kernel in MOPZ/SUM Tool (exe folder)?

If I have to go with 742 Kernel,  I need to update Stack to 26 & Upgrade our database to sql server 2012.

Without upgrading sps & database is their any way to upgrade sap erp to ehp7?

Note: Only production server running on Windows failover cluster 2008r2 sp1. Dev & Qas are non-cluster systems with same platform releases. I'm not sure whether sql server 2012(DB) supports Windows Failover cluster 2008r2 sp1 (OS) or not.

Please suggest me on this.

Thanks & Regards,

Venkatesh P