Part 1 - Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2013 Preview - A First Look

ARTICLES IN THIS SERIES
Part 1 - Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2013 Preview - A First Look
Part 2 - Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2013 Preview Series – Central Administration
Part 3 - Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2013 Preview Series – Initial Farm Configuration, Default Web Application and Site Collection
Part 4 - Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2013 Preview Series – System Setup
Part 5 - Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2013 Preview Series – Application Management

OVERVIEW
This article is the part 1 from the series of articles on Microsoft SharePoint 2013 Preview. In this post, you will see details on my attempt to try SharePoint Foundation 2013 preview on a VM and we will also discuss what has been changed.

MINIMUM HARDWARE REQUIREMENTS
Following are the minimum hardware requirements for Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2013. These requirements are similar to Microsoft SharePoint 2010.

• 64-bit 4 core processor
• 4 GB memory for development or evaluation and 8 GB for production
• 80GB Free Disk Space

DATABASE SERVER REQUIREMENTS
Following are the minimum database server requirements. SQL Server 2005 64-bit w/SP3 is no longer supported.

• 64-bit processor, 4 cores for small deployments and 8 cores for medium deployments
• 8GB memory for small deployments, 16 GB for large deployments
• 64-bit edition of Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 w/SP1 RTM. RC 0/RCO are not supported
• 80 GB free disk space

SERVER OPERATING SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
Following are the minimum database software server requirements:

• 64-bit Edition of Windows Server 2008 R2 w/SP1 Standard, Enterprise, Data Center, or Web Server editions

WEB & APPLICATION SERVERS REQUIREMENTS
Following are the software requirements for the web and application servers:

• Web Server (IIS) and Application Server roles
• Windows Identity Foundation (WIF 1.0 and 1.1)
• .NET Framework version 4.0
• .NET 4 DGR Update KB 2468871
• SQL Server 2008 Native Client
• Open Data Library aka ODataLib
• Information Protection & Control Client (MSIPC)
• 64-bit Sync Framework Runtime v1.0
• Windows PowerShell 3.0

BROWSER REQUIREMENTS
Following are the browser requirements

• IE 8 and IE 9 32-bit editions are supported. IE 8 and IE 9 64-bit editions remains unsupported
• FireFox, Chrome, and Safari are supported with limitations

SHAREPOINT FOUNDATION 2013 PREVIEW SETUP
Follow these instructions to install SharePoint Foundation 2013 Preview. I have created a VM using VMWare Player and installed with all the requirements mentioned above. Instructions on how to setup a VM are published in the following article:

URL: http://www.naumanahmed.com/2011/09/sharepoint-2010-single-server-farm.html#!/2011/09/sharepoint-2010-single-server-farm.html

I have also created two service accounts titled “svc-sqlserver” and “svc-spfarm”. The account “svc-spfarm” has administrative privileges as well.

In addition, although the Microsoft documentation for SharePoint Foundation 2013 states that it installs the “Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 SP1 - Express Edition” for single server install. It was however, not installed after the setup and there is no command line switch that you can specify to launch it from the setup. I had to download and install “Microsoft® SQL Server® 2008 R2 Service Pack 1” from the following URL and configured the SQL Server Express to run under contoso\svc-sqlserver account. Make sure to add this account as a server administrator during SQL Server installation.

URL: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=26729

Once you have installed the SQL Server 2008 R2, continue the installation according to the following steps:

1. Download the SharePoint Foundation 2013 Setup from the following URL.
   
   URL: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=30345 
   
   Note: The download file is in .IMG format. In order to mount this in VMWare Player, you will need to select “All Files” in the “Browse for ISO Image” window in VMWare Player.
   
   
2. The SharePoint Foundation 2013 Preview splash screen will be displayed. Next you will see the start screen.  It looks similar to SharePoint 2010 splash screen so nothing much changed here.
   
    
   
3. Select “Install Pre-requisites”. This initially prompted me with the error saying the “Operating System is not compatible”. The reason was this VM was missing the Windows 2008 R2 SP1. So I installed Windows 2008 SP1 from the following URL.
   
   URL: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=5842
   
    
4. Next you have to install the pre-requisites. Selecting “Install software prerequisites” will display you the “Microsoft SharePoint 2013 Preview Products Preparation” tool. Hit next, accept the agreement in the next screen by selecting the checkbox and select “Next” again. You may need to restart your machine during this process.
   
    
   
   Note: You will need to be connected to the Internet for the pre-requisite process to complete as it may need to download files from the Internet. Since I used a VM, I temporarily configured it in the “Bridged” mode and changed the IP address in the VM so that it obtains the IP address using DHCP to make it work. Once the pre-requisite was installed, I changed it back to the original settings. I also had to change the hosts file at c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc to make localhost alias work.
   
      
   
5. Restart your system and start the SharePoint 2013 Preview setup. Select “Install SharePoint Foundation” from the “Install” section. The setup will start preparing the necessary files and there might be little delay here. You will see the License and Terms screen once this process is complete. Accept the agreement by selecting the checkbox and select “Continue”.
   
    
   

Next you will see the “Data Location” screen. This is something new in SharePoint 2013 Foundation. Basically, it asks you to select a folder where search server can store the index files. For simplicity, I specified a location in C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared.
Select “Install Now” button. The installation will take several minutes. Once complete, you will see the “Run Configuration Wizard” screen. Keep the “Run SharePoint Products Configuration Wizard now” checkbox checked and select “Close”.

 
 

The “SharePoint Products Configuration Wizard” screen will be displayed next. Nothing much changed on the first screen when compared to SharePoint 2010. Select “Next” and select “Yes” at the warning saying services on the server may be restarted.
The next screen will also you if you want to connect to an existing farm or create a new farm. Select “Create a new server farm” option and select “Next”.
In the next screen, specify the instance name of SQL Server. For evaluation, I am using SQL Server 2008 SP1 Express.
Specify a passphrase in the next screen. This is required for farm operation e.g., when you add another server to the farm.
The next screen is going to ask you to specify a port number for SharePoint Central Administration Site. I used port 27000 and selected “NTLM” as default authentication provider.
In the next screen, you will see the summary of configuration. Select “Next” to start the configuration.
During this process you may want to look at the log file in 15 hive at C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\15\Logs\PSCDiagnostics_*
Select “Finish” in the next screen. You will be redirected to the SharePoint Central Administration web site




 



Farm configuration will be discussed in the next article. Stay tuned!