July 6, 2014

Windows 2012 installation issue in VM player

When you tried to create a new VM using VM player 6.0.2 with Windows 2012 as the guest OS, you may get error while guest OS installation.
The error will tell "Microsfoft Terms not able find..." and installation can not continue.

Follow below steps:
1. When you create VM by clicking on "New VM" option in player., Uncheck the install OS from drive or USB option and select install OS later option.
2. After VM is created with specified Hardware configuration, configure CD/DVD drive to your OS media and start the installation.
3. You can see, OS gets installed with out any problem. It is a know bug in VM Player

Sharepoint 2013 Installation

Have been eager to work with Sharepoint since MOSS 2007. But just last week got a chance to start working..

I personally have heard lot of ghost stories about Sharepoint installations ever since 2007.. So I wanted to try it out my self. 

I tried installing and configuring it in two server platforms.. One with Windows 2008 R2 Standard edition and another in Windows 2012 Standard edition / Data Center Edition (As a VM in VM Player running in Windows 8.1)

Before I begin, a small note...
It is not possible to install Sharepoint 2013 in Windows 2012 R2, as MS is supposed to release SP1 / update 1 to Sharepoint 2013 which will enable it to install it in Windows 2012 R2 ( as of now). Please refer to MS article.. (In my case I had Core i3 II Gen, 8 gB RAM, 500 GB HDD @ 7200 RPM as host and allocated 100 GB HDD and 5 GB RAM to Guest in VM)

Once OS (either Windows 2008 R2 or Windows 2012) is installed. Please proceed as per following steps to install Sharepoint 2013 / Sharepoint Foundation 2013.

Note: You can't install Sharepoint 2013 / Sharepoint foundation 2013 in client operating systems. You will need server edition.

Part 1
  1. Install .NET 3.5 SP1 and .NET Framework 4.0.
  2. Configure Application Server Role and Web server role in the Windows.
    • Launch Server Manager
    • Click on “Add roles and features”.
    • On the “Before you begin” page, click “Next”.
    • Select “Role based or feature based installation” and click “Next”.
    • If it isn’t already selected, select “Select a server from the server pool”, and the server that you are currently working on. Then click “Next”.
    • On the “Select server roles” page, check “Application Server”, “Web Server (IIS)”, and (EDIT:) “IIS 6 Management Console” (under Web Server (IIS)->Management Tools->IIS 6 Management Compatibility->IIS 6 Management Console.). NOTE: When you check “Web Server (IIS)” or “IIS 6 Management Console”, another dialog will pop up, asking “Add features that are required for ?” Click on the “Add Features” button here. This will return you to the “Select Server Roles” page. After adding all 3 roles, click “Next”.
    • On the “Select features” page, expand “.NET Framework 4.5 Features” group by clicking on it. In here, check “ASP.NET 4.5″.
    • On the same page, check “Windows Identity Foundation 3.5″. Click “Next”.
    • On the “Application Server” page, click “Next”.
    • On the “Select role services” page, check “Web Server (IIS) Support” and click “Next”.
    • When the “Add features that are required for Web Server (IIS) Support?” dialog pops up, click on “Add Features”.
    • Click “Next” again to go to the next page.
    • From the “Web Server Role” page, click “Next”.
    • From “Select role services”, click “Next”.
    • On the “Confirm installation selections” page, I suggest that you check “Restart the destination server automatically if required”. (You’re going to need to reboot eventually anyway.)
    • Click “Install”.
    • Wait for feature installation to complete. When it does, you can click “close”. If the server doesn’t restart automatically, reboot it.
    Part 2
    1. Install Windows Updates (at least recommended) and restart the server.
    2. Download all following Prerequisite and keep it in a folder
      1. Microsoft .NET Framework 4.5
      2. Windows Management Framework 3.0 (CTP2)
      3. Microsoft SQL Server 2008 r2 Native Client
      4. Windows Identity Foundation (KB974405)
      5. Microsoft Sync Framework Runtime v1.0 SP1 (x64)
      6. Windows Server AppFabric
      7. Windows Identity Extensions
      8. Microsoft Information Protection and Control Client
      9. Microsoft WCF Data Services 5.0
      10. CU Package 1 for Microsoft AppFabric 1.1 for Windows Server (KB2671763)
    3. You can install all of the above except item # 6 and #10 in the prerequisite list by clicking on same.
    4. Once you have installed, mount your Sharepoint 2013 image (.ISO)
    5. Once you have mounted it, you can see "prerequisiteinstaller.exe" in the root folder of Sharepoint 2013 mounted drive.
    6. Run "Powershell" console.
    7. Type following command to install and start product configuration in sharepoint 2013.
      1. your prompt(SharePoint image location)> Prerequisiteinstaller.exe /AppFabric:"\setup.exe" /KB2671763:"\AppFabric1.1-RTM-KB2671763-x64-ENU.exe"
          • You may get error some times in that case just prefix the command with "./"
          • ./Prerequisiteinstaller.exe /AppFabric:"\setup.exe" /KB2671763:"\AppFabric1.1-RTM-KB2671763-x64-ENU.exe"
                                    The above will complete the Sharepoint 2013 pre-requisite installation and Product installation can be invoked or Pre-requisite installer will launch the product wizard.

                                    When you invoke product configuration wizard (SandBox installation mode), the server will launch the process and in all probablity it will fail in step 5 with following image.



                                    Follow below steps to resolve and re-run the wizard.

                                    1) If you are running SharePoint Foundation, navigate in the Windows File Explorer to C:\Program Files\Windows SharePoint Services\15.0\Data.  If you are running SharePoint Server, navigate to C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office Servers\15.0\Data\Office Server.
                                    2) You’ll see a folder in this directory called “Analytics_”, for example, “Analytics_939ab742-745f-456c-8623-fddca9b02334″ (your GUID will be different, of course).
                                    3) Right click on the folder and select “Properties”.
                                    4) Click on the “Sharing” tab, and then click on “Advanced Sharing…”.
                                    5) Check the “Share this folder” checkbox.  Leave the default share name.
                                    6) Click on the “Permissions” button near the bottom.
                                    7) Click the “Add..” button.
                                    8) In the white textbox on the bottom, type   “NETWORK SERVICE; WSS_ADMIN_WPG”.  Then click the “Check Names” button to make sure that the users resolve.
                                    9) Click OK.
                                    10) Select each user that you just added (NETWORK SERVICE and WSS_ADMIN_WPG), and check the “Full Control” checkbox in the “Allow” column.
                                    11) Click “OK” to save the permissions.
                                    12) Click “OK” to save the share settings.
                                    13) Click “Close” to exit the dialog box.

                                    After this step you can, see that Sharepoint 2013 installation will be successful and you can proceed to launch "Central Administration" site to configure required services.