Installing Office Online Server - Part One

Office Online Server is the new version of Office Web Apps with a lot of new features which you see in the Office Online part of your Office 365 subscription. It is compatible with SharePoint 2013 and SharePoint 2016 farm. Here is how you can install it for your SharePoint 2013 farm.

Prepare the server for installing Office Online Server

  • You can install OOS on a Windows Server 2012 R2 and Windows Server 2016. Do not install any other Server Applications like Microsoft Office, SharePoint, or Exchange on the server where you install Office Online Server.
  • Make sure ports 80, 443 and 809 are not blocked on the firewall. Do not install any application or services which are using this port. Office Online server periodically removes the applications using these ports.
  • Add the Windows feature required for Office Online Server:

For Windows Server 2012 R2

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,NET-Framework-Features,NET-Framework-Core,NET-HTTP-Activation,NET-Non-HTTP-Activ,NET-WCF-HTTP-Activation45,Windows-Identity-Foundation,Server-Media-Foundation

For Windows Server 2016

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,NET-Framework-Features,NET-Framework-45-Features,NET-Framework-Core,NET-Framework-45-Core,NET-HTTP-Activation,NET-Non-HTTP-Activ,NET-WCF-HTTP-Activation45,Windows-Identity-Foundation,Server-Media-Foundation

Installing Office Online Server

Download the Office Online Server executables from Volume Licensing Service Center.

Run the setup.exe, accept the terms and continue.

If you want to keep the installation files to not be on the system drive, change the installation directory. If necessary, install language packs. You need to install all the language packs installed on the SharePoint farm.

Create Office Online Server Farm

If you are using a production server, you should use HTTPS. Purchase an SSL certificate which will have a server name and your Office Online URL farm as the certificate’s Subject Alternative Name. Install this SSL certificate before creating the Office Online Server farm.

Here is the command which has the minimum parameters required:

New-OfficeWebAppsFarm -InternalURL “http://<FQDN of the server>“ -ExternalUrl “https://<FQDN of the server>” -CertificateName <Friendly Name of the Certificate> -EditingEnabled

For updating any of the parameters, use Set-OfficeWebAppsFarm

For verifying the installation, browse http://<severname>/hosting/discovery. It should give you an XML file.

In the next part, we will integrate this Office Online Server farm to the SharePoint Server (2013 or 2016).