Creating an Evaluation Server

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For evaluation purposes, you may choose to install SharePoint on a single server. You can even use SharePoint in a very limited capacity in production on a single server - although, admittedly, that’s rather unlikely. (For the sake of argument, though, imagine using SharePoint for a single department - in that situation, a single-server installation may be appropriate.)

You can use the steps in this section to install either Windows SharePoint Services or Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007. The installations are very similar for a single-server installation.

Your server needs to meet these minimum hardware requirements in order to install SharePoint:

  • Dual-processor computer with at least 2.5 GHz processors.
  • Minimum 1GB of RAM, but 2GB of RAM is recommended.

If you intend to run SharePoint on multiple servers, you may need to beef up hardware on each server. Microsoft recommends 4GB for MOSS 2007 application servers. Hardware requirements for the database server depend on which edition of SQL Server you install. For more details, see the topic “Determine hardware and software requirements” in the MOSS 2007 TechNet library.

As with any server application, you need to prepare your server before you begin installation of SharePoint. You should start with a clean server - a server with a freshly installed Windows Server 2003 operating system - otherwise, you may have unexpected results.

Also make sure, before you start, that your server meets the minimum hardware requirements (as described in the preceding section). Windows SharePoint Services version 3 and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 take advantage of many new technologies.

These technologies have been retrofitted to work with technologies already existing at the time of SharePoint’s release. At the time of SharePoint’s release, the latest release of Windows Server is Windows Server 2003 R2. Version 3.0 of the .NET Framework was released around the time as SharePoint.

SharePoint needs both version 2.0 and version 3.0 of .NET. In order for SharePoint to work with these technologies, a number of prerequisite technologies must be installed.

The following instructions assume you’re going to install SharePoint on a server running Windows Server 2003. The next version of Windows Server after the 2003 version is code-named Windows Server Longhorn.

Longhorn Server, as it is often called, likely has the official name “Windows Server 2007.” This version of Windows Server likely has all the prerequisites you need to install SharePoint. Therefore, your only preparation step is to install Windows Server 2007 on the server.

Preparing a Windows Server 2003 server for SharePoint installation requires many steps. If you’ve never configured a Windows server, then you may need to get someone with technical experience to help you.

The details of all thirty-plus tasks required to prepare a Windows Server 2003 server to install SharePoint are beyond the scope of this post, but here’s a high-level overview of the procedure:

  1. Install Windows Server 2003 with Service Pack 1 on a clean server. You can use any edition of Windows Server 2003 except Web Edition. You could install SharePoint on a domain controller, but it’s generally not recommended.
  2. Using the Manage Your Server window, add the Application Server role to your Windows Server 2003. The Manage Your Server window usually appears automatically when you log on to a server running Windows 2003. You can open the Manage Your Server window by choosing All Programs => Administrative Tools => Manage Your Server. In the Manage Your Server window, you click the Add or Remove a Role link to launch the Configure Your Server Wizard. Then you step through the wizard to add the Application Server role to your server. The wizard installs Internet Information Services (IIS) on your server, which turns it into a Web server. The Application Server role appears in the Manage Your Server window.
  3. Download and install version 3.0 of the .NET Framework.
  4. Enable ASP.NET 2.0 in the IIS Manager. Version 2.0 of ASP.NET installs with the .NET Framework. You must enable IIS to use ASP.NET. Choose Start => All Programs => Administrative Tools => Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager. Enable ASP.NET 2.0 in the Web Service Extensions folder.

To install Windows SharePoint Services or Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 on a single server, follow these steps:

  1. Double-click the Setup.exe file to start the installation. If you download Windows SharePoint Services from Microsoft’s Web site, you can double-click the SharePoint.exe file that downloads from their site.
  2. If you’re installing MOSS 2007, enter your Product Key and click the Continue button.
  3. Read the licensing agreement and select the check box if you accept the terms of the agreement. Click the Continue button.
  4. Click the Basic button on the Choose the Installation You Want page.
  5. In the setup window - after the installation process completes - select the Run the SharePoint Products and Technologies Configuration Wizard check box and then click the Close button. The Installation wizard closes, and the Configuration wizard opens.
  6. Click Next to start the Configuration wizard. The wizard displays a dialog box notifying you that it must stop several services before starting the wizard.
  7. Click Yes to confirm that the wizard can stop SharePoint services. The wizard steps through ten tasks that automatically configure SharePoint, such as creating databases and sample content.
  8. After the configuration is complete, click the Finish button to exit the wizard.  The home page of your SharePoint Web application appears in the browser.

You see several prompts when SharePoint opens in the browser for the first time. Several configuration and administrative tasks must still be completed before you can start using SharePoint.

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