So, my last post about the release of Beta 2 Office 2007 inc. SharePoint 2007 Server made out that installation was a simple process. Experience over the last 24 hours has taught me different. Here's an account of some of the problems I've run up against, and step by step installation instructions to get SP 2007 working....
Let's be clear from the start, this is Beta software. Beta 2 software is typically good, but still prone to blow up and has the potential of taking your OS installation with it. If you're married to the software on your PC or are of the faint of heart then you should not be installing Beta software on your machine. Typically, Beta software has no upgrade process built in, so if you've installed SharePoint 2007 Beta 1, then you might want to repave your machine to be sure that Beta 2 installs correctly.
The instructions below are an amalgamation of the instructions from
Martin Kearn's blog for Beta 1 install with my changes for Beta 2.
Server Installation:- Install Windows 2003 R3 (or Windows 2003 RTM with SP1), apply all the latest patches from Windows Update.
- Join the machine to a domain (according to Martin), I cannot very with this is mandatory as my PC is part of a domain anyway.
- Decide on an account with local administrator rights. Martin's instructions say to use a domain account, but I am using a local administrator account (not the main Administrator). Log in as this account, perform all installations and configurations using this account, and all services should run under this account. The remainder of these instructions shall refer to this account as the "service account".
I tried using the NETWORK_SERVICE account in a prior installation and ran into no end of problems with permissions.
- Using
Regedit.exe, make sure that
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Shared Tools\Web Server
Extensions\12.0\ServerLanguage\1033 is blank if it exists at all. Wasn't present on my machine.
- Install SQL Server 2005 (and Service Pack 1 from Windows Update).
- Assign
your service account to the ‘System Administrators’, ‘Security
Administrators’ and ‘Database Creators’ server roles in SQL server (You
will need to use SQL Server Management Studio). Note, just adding this account to the System Administrators role is not enough. I explicitly added the service account to each of these roles, not the BUILTIN\Administrators group.
- If you have Ghost, now would be a great time to make an image of your PC, so that you have a stable image prior to installing Beta bits.
- Make sure you log into the console using the service account, do not install using Terminal Server/Remote Desktop. Problems as a result of installation through TS/RDP are not founded at this time, but past experience with other software installs has taught me that this can be the root cause of install problems.
- Install the latest version of WinFX Runtime Components (I installed version 3.0 Beta 2).
- I was tempted to install Office 2007 Beta 2 Professional (Word, Excel, etc) here, but resisted and concentrated on SharePoint installation only.
- Insert your CD (or attach your ISO image) and run setup.exe (if it does not auto run). NOTE:
If you get an error about web service extensions here, do a ‘repair’ on
.net 2.0 framework using add/remove programs. This is caused when IIS
is installed after the .net framework (part of WinFX Runtime Components
3.0).
- Enter your CD key and accept the license agreement. You should have received a CDKEY via email when you subscribed for the download or ordered the CD via mail.
- Choose the Advanced installation, which means that SP2007 data can be installed in a local or remote SQL Server database, as well as participate as part of a farm. The basic installation uses SQL Server Express, which I have had problems with in past installations.
- Select "Complete" on the next dialog, and click the install now button.
- Once
installed you will get a screen with a check box that reads “Run the
SharePoint products and Technologies Wizard now”. Ensure this is ticked
and click ‘Close’. If you had installed and removed Beta 1 on your machine prior to Beta 2 you may get an error running the configuration wizard. I know not of any fix, except to repave, at this time.
- You will get a warning that the wizard is about to reset several services, click ‘Yes’. You’ll be asked about the farm configuration, elect to ‘No, I want to create a new Server farm’.
- Provide
the database server (your server name, do not use (local) ) and your account details
(account in the domain\user format). Leave the database name as the
default. Click ‘Next’. Even though I am using a local account I still specified the full account name - MACHINENAME\account.
- Set the authentication mode to ‘NTLM’ (do not specify a port number) and click ‘Next’.
- NOTE:
If it fails here, it is most likely that you do not SQL setup
correctly. Ensure your service account is in the right groups. Please
also note that this section can take a very long time, especially step
2. (up to 45 minutes).|
- You’ll get a success screen at the end, click ‘Finish. The
wizard will attempt to load the central administration window. You may
need to login here, use your service account. You may also get prompted
to add the site to your trusted sites – go ahead and do that.
Follow the steps in Martin's blog for Services Configuration, Core Service Setup, and Portal Setup.
http://blogs.msdn.com/martinkearn/archive/2006/04/10/572428.aspx
