I know there are a lot of blogs out there, already with many of these contents. My idea is to bring all those steps together in this series which will help me (or anyone else) try to begin exploring these new stack of products. (Note: It will be assumed that we have downloaded all the products required in this series.)
So here we begin:
Part 1: Installing Windows Server 2012. (You are reading this part.)
Part 2: Installing SQL Server 2012
Part 3: Installing SQL Server 2012 with SSAS with Tabular and PowerPivot for SharePoint Integration modes.
Part 4: Installing SharePoint Server 2013.
Part 5: Configure PowerPivot for SharePoint 2013 using the PowerPivot for SharePoint 2013 Configuration tool.
The first things first. As this is my virtual machine environment, you might need to trouble-shoot several other issues pertaining your local environment. As for example, network adaptor errors, connecting to internet on the guest machine, setting up the required services to run on the windows server, etc.
So, with these things in-place and working as per expectations (which normally does not in this real world), let us begin the part 1 now to get our OS installed.
- I will definitely say this was the easiest of all as it’s just about starting the setup and following the installation wizard to let the install step complete by itself. Once completed, you’ll get to see the Server Manager screen. Verify and make sure that the BITS Services is started. If not, start the service.
- Rename the Computer as per your liking. Do not restart at this moment. (This may lead to an error during the restart process while trying to update windows, and force an auto-reverting process.)
- Setup the windows auto-update and try to perform a manual check for recent updates. Download the updates and then restart and install updates. I saw that this process did avoid the auto-revert process while trying to perform certain updates.
- AD DS Configuration: Click [Add roles and features] on the server manager and click Next.
Select Role-Based or Feature-Based Installation. Click Next.
Click Next.
Select Active Directory Domain Services -> Then Click Add Features on the pop-up.
Click Next until you see the confirmation screen.
Select this check-box to auto restart after install completes, click Install.
Click Close.
Click on the Notification Icon and then click “Promote this server to a domain controller” (as “dcpromo” is no longer available in 2012).
Select “Add a new forest” and provide a Root Domain name (for ex: “ mydomain.com” without the quotes).
Now, it’s time to provide the restore mode password:
Click Next. As earlier, we will have to live by the DNS delegation warning:
Click Next on the Verify the NetBIOS Name assigned to domain.
Click Next on AD DS DB, LogFiles and SYSVOL.
Click Next on the Review Summary screen.
The install performs few prerequisite checks, shows the below success message (including few warnings):
Review the Results summary to verify if there are any major concerns for you to dig through.
I am happy with all that I see and click Install.
Once it completes, the server restarts.
The server aborted the restart, so I had to stop and then start the server manually.
Once it restarts, you’ll notice the domain in the username displayed:
You might also want to go ahead and install the Guest Additions to support the full screen display of the VM.
- Now let’s craete some user accounts. As this is just a Development environment, I will not be creating a separate account for each service applications as we normally do it for SP 2013. Instead I’ll simply create these two user accounts:
=> SSASSvcAcct: SQL Server Analysis Services Account.
=> SSRSSvcAcct: SQL Server Reporting Services Account.
=> SPConfigAcct: SharePoint Configuration Service Account.
Now, ensure that these accounts are added to “Domain Administrators” group.
At this point of time, let’s take a snapshot of the VM and do a restart.
So, this is all for getting the OS installed and running.
We will move to the Part 2 of this series, where we will get SQL Server 2012 installed.
