DegerTech: Installing SharePoint 2010 RC: First Notes

I’ve just finished installing Sharepoint 2010 RC, and even when I found the setup process to be very straightforward (at least if you installed MOSS 2007 sometime) there are still a few tricky steps that I thought I could share.

Platform Setup

Install Windows 2008 64-bit
- Remember to activate “Application Server Role” and “Web Server Role”
SQL Server
- I recommend doing a full install, instead of using the bundled SQL Server Express
- Install SQL Server 2008 64-bit
- Install SQL Server 2008 SP1, 64-bit.
- Install SQL Server 2008 Cumulative Update 2, 64-bit.
- The final build number should be 10.00.2714.
- Test the installation accessing the server with the SQL Management Studio and browsing the sample database.

Installing SharePoint 2010 Prerequisites

Download the installation package from here. Then launch it. (14.0.4730.1010_OfficeServer_none_ship_x64_en-us.exe)

Click on “Install software prerequisites”. The installer tool will download and install all prerequisites for you. If you don’t have Internet access from the server, you should manually download and install all pre-requisites listed here.

Then, simply follow the wizard steps.

Installing SharePoint Server

After finishing installing the prerequisites, click on “Install Sharepoint Server”, enter the Licence Key (Beta key: PKXTJ-DCM9D-6MM3V-G86P8-MJ8CY), accept the licence terms and follow the wizard steps.

When the installation wizard finishes, clear the “Run the Sharepoint Product Configuration Wizard now” checkbox. Directly executing the Configuration Wizard would require us to provide a domain account (not local) as administrator. To workarround this, we’ll create an initial Configuration Database using the PowerShell command new-SPConfigurationDatabase.

Configuring Sharepoint 2010

After runing the installation wizard, follow this steps to create an initial Configuration Database using PowerShell. (More info on provisioning Sharepoint 2010 using PowerShell here).

Next, launch the Sharepoint Products Configuration Wizard. It will recognize the previously created Configuration Database and will offer us to stay connected or disconnect from the existing farm. Choose to stay connected and click “Next”.

Then, specify the port in which the administration site will be installed. Use a number easy to remember (My pick is 1024). Then pick the security setting that best fits your environment (default = NTLM) and click “Next”.