SharePoint 2013 Installation on Windows Server 2012

You might already know that Microsoft announced the preview version of SharePoint 2013 (aka SharePoint 15) last month. In this article I would like to give an overview of the installation of it on a Windows Server 2012 machine.

Download

Please note that there are 2 versions to download:

SharePoint Foundation 2013
SharePoint Server 2013

Choose the version you require:

SharePoint Foundation 2013 (1 GB) Download
SharePoint Server 2013 (2 GB) Download

Please note that the file is in Image (.img) format. You need an Image File Extractor to extract and run the setup. The folloing is the link for an Image File Extractor:
(http://www.winimage.com/)

No Client Operating System Installation

The Client Operating Systems like Windows 7 / Vista etc. are not supported in the SharePoint 2013 version. So you might require one of the following for installation:

Windows Server 2012 R2
Windows Server 2008
Windows 8 Hyper V virtual machine

Pre-Requisites

The following are the prerequisites for SharePoint Foundation 2013:

Microsoft .NET Framework 4.5
Windows Management Framework 3.0 (CTP2)
Application Server Role, Web Server (IIS) Role
Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 SP1 Native Client
Windows Identity Foundation (KB974405)
Microsoft Sync Framework Runtime v1.0 SP1 (x64)
Windows Server AppFabric
Microsoft Identity Extensions
Microsoft Information Protection and Control Client
Microsoft WCF Data Services 5.0
Cumulative Update Package 1 for Microsoft AppFabric 1.1 for Windows Server (KB2671763)

You can install the prerequisites using the Install software prerequisites option from the main screen. In case an internet connection is unavailable, a download & install would be possible.

Windows Server 2012

For the installation I have used the Windows Server 2012 R2 trial version. If you already have a server operating system installed you can skip this step and proceed directly to SharePoint 2013 Installation.

Download Windows Server 2012 Image

You can download the image file from the following location:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/hh670538.aspx

The image file is 3.37 GB in size and you can extract or burn the image file to proceed with the installation. (ImgBurn is a tool to burn .img files to DVD.)

On running the bootable DVD you should be prompted with the setup.exe as shown below:

Use the GUI option in the further step:

Please note that this operating system installation step can be skipped if you already have Windows Server in place. Ensure your Operating System has a valid domain integration.

Tips

Inside Windows 2012, Use Ctrl + Alt + Delete to view the Power Options screen and you can choose Shut Down, Restart etc.
To access your Start Menu (Screen) use your Windows button or move the mouse to the left bottom end of the toolbar.

SQL Server 2012

SharePoint 2013 requires SQL Server 2012. You can download a trial version from the following link:

http://www.microsoft.com/betaexperience/pd/SQL2012EvalCTA/enus/default.aspx

Download the highlighted version and install it. Before installation you need to create a domain account to specify it during the SQL Server installation.

Note: The SQL Server Installation should take around 20 minutes.

SharePoint 2013 Installation

After installing the operating system & database server we can continue with the actual SharePoint 2013 Installation. Run the setup.bat from the extracted files root folder.

Install software pre-requisites

Click on the Install software prerequisites link to automatically install all the pre-required software.

After the preceding step you can proceed with the actual installation.

Choose the installation as Standalone and click the Install Now button as shown below.

Wait for a few minutes for the installation to be completed.

Once the installation is completed you will be launched with the Products Configuration Wizard.

Specify your database name and credentials in the following page:

Enter the Farm Security Phrase of your own:

Wait for the configuration activities to be completed. This should take around 10 minutes.

Once the configuration is done you will get the following message. The textboxes shows your appropriate machine parameters.

Central Administration

The following is the screen shot of Central Administration in SharePoint 2013. You can open this from the Start Menu.

Click on the Start the Wizard button as shown above to configure your farm settings. Once the farm configuration is done you should be able to see the following screen.

Default Site

Now you can try to openi the default site that was installed. It should be accessible by the machine name itself as shown below:

http://localhost
http://machinename

The following is the blank site template of the default site:

Corrupted Default Site

If you get a time out error or a Connection Closed message then probably the default site collection is corrupted. You can do the following activities to fix it:

Delete the port 80 site from Central Administration
Create a new web application with port 80
Add a new site collection to the new web application
Try accessing the site using above urls

Ensure that you have valid entries in the system32\drivers\etc\hosts file.

Virtual Machine Links

The following are some virtual machine links.

References

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj162979%28v=office.15%29.aspx

Summary

In this article we have seen the installation of SharePoint 2013 on Windows Server 2012. Summarizing the activities we have performed the following:

Windows Server 2012
SQL Server 2012
SharePoint 2013
Internet Information Services 8.0

Please let me know of any problems you face so that I may be able to guide you. In the upcoming article I will describe the new features of SharePoint 2013.