Configure Office Web Apps For SharePoint 2013: Part 1

In this article we can learn how to deploy Office Web Apps Server. To deploy Office Web Apps Server, you install prerequisite software, server roles, services, and features, and then install Office Web Apps Server. Next, you use Windows PowerShell to configure the Office Web Apps Server farm.

Office Web Apps Server overview

Prepare servers to run Office Web Apps Server

1. Install the following software:

2. Next, open the Windows PowerShell prompt as an administrator and run the following example commands to install the required roles and services.

For Windows Server 2008 R2

Import-Module ServerManager

3. And then run the following example commands:

Add-WindowsFeature Web-Server,Web-WebServer,Web-Common-Http,Web-Static-Content,Web-App-Dev,Web-Asp-Net,Web-Net-Ext,Web-ISAPI-Ext,Web-ISAPI-Filter,Web-Includes,Web-Security,Web-Windows-Auth,Web-Filtering,Web-Stat-Compression,Web-Dyn-Compression,Web-Mgmt-Console,Ink-Handwriting,IH-Ink-Support

4. If you are prompted, restart the server when the command finishes.

Windows Server 2012

5. Open the Windows PowerShell prompt as an administrator and run the following example commands to install the required roles and services:

Add-WindowsFeature Web-Server,Web-Mgmt-Tools,Web-Mgmt-Console,Web-WebServer,Web-Common-Http,Web-Default-Doc,Web-Static-Content,Web-Performance,Web-Stat-Compression,Web-Dyn-Compression,Web-Security,Web-Filtering,Web-Windows-Auth,Web-App-Dev,Web-Net-Ext45,Web-Asp-Net45,Web-ISAPI-Ext,Web-ISAPI-Filter,Web-Includes,InkandHandwritingServices

Install Office Web Apps Server

1. Download Office Web Apps Server from the Microsoft Download Center.

2. Take one of the following actions:

For Windows Server 2012, open the .img file directly and run Setup.exe (double-click it).
For Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1, use a program that can mount or extract .img files. Then run Setup.exe (double-click it).

3. In the Office Web Apps Server 2013 Wizard, on the Read the Microsoft Software License Terms page, select "I accept the terms of this agreement" and then select "Continue".

4. On the "Choose a file location" page, select the folder where you want the Office Web Apps Server files to be installed (for example, "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office Web Apps"), and then select "Install Now". Note that, if this folder does not exist it will create the folders for you.

Deploy a single-server Office Web Apps Server farm in a test environment

The information here will help you install a single-server Office Web Apps Server farm that uses HTTP in a test environment. You don't need a certificate or load balancer, but you do need a dedicated physical server or virtual machine instance that is not running any other server application. You can use this Office Web Apps Server farm to provide Office Web Apps functionality to SharePoint 2013 and Exchange Server 2013, but be aware of the following limitations:

The environment can be accessed only by internal users. No external URL is configured.
The environment can't be used with Lync Server 2013, that requires HTTPS.

The code in the following example creates a new Office Web Apps Server farm that consists of a single server. The URL you specify for "-InternalURL" is the name of the server that runs the Office Web Apps Server, such as "http://servername". The "-AllowHttp" parameter configures the farm to use HTTP, and the "-EditingEnabled" parameter enables editing in Office Web Apps when it is used together with SharePoint 2013. The "-EditingEnabled" parameter is not used by Lync Server 2013 or Exchange Server 2013 because those hosts don't support editing.

New-OfficeWebAppsFarm -InternalURL "http://servername" -AllowHttp -EditingEnabled

New-OfficeWebAppsFarm –InternalURL.jpg

Verify that the Office Web Apps Server farm was created successfully

After the farm is created, details about the farm are displayed in the Windows PowerShell prompt. To verify that Office Web Apps Server is installed and configured correctly, use a web browser to access the Office Web Apps Server discovery URL, as shown in the following example. The discovery URL is composed of the value that you assigned to the InternalUrl parameter when you configured your Office Web Apps Server farm, and it is followed by "/hosting/discovery".

http://servername/hosting/discovery

If Office Web Apps Server works as expected, you should see a Web app Open Platform Interface (WOPI)-discovery XML file in your web browser. The first few lines of that file should resemble the following example: