SharePoint (and Project Server) Shenanigans

There are quite a few articles about installing SharePoint 2013 on Windows Server 2012 around, but I thought I would share a real world experience.

Pretty much the first thing that the SharePoint 2013 Deployment Tool does during an install is try to add the Application and Web Server roles to Windows Server.

If your Windows 2012 Server has internet access then you should have no problems, but if your server does not have internet access then you will need a copy of the Windows server ISO and these instructions below as the server roles are now on demand with Windows Server 2012.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2765260

A couple of points to note, firstly there is a typo in the instructions for the Offline method.

This instruction

Add-WindowsFeature NET-WCF-HTTP-Activation45,NET-WCF-TCP-Activation45,NET-WCF-Pipe-Activation45-Source D:\Sources\sxs

should read

Add-WindowsFeature NET-WCF-HTTP-Activation45,NET-WCF-TCP-Activation45,NET-WCF-Pipe-Activation45 -Source D:\Sources\sxs

note the space before the –Source switch

secondly, the KB article states

Note Be aware that you can also copy the files locally or specify a UNC path where the installation files are stored.

We found that having the files copied locally or the ISO file mounted locally worked fine, but trying to run over a UNC path worked for the 1st set of features but failed for the 2nd set with a PowerShell error, as soon as we mounted the ISO locally the 2nd set worked fine.

If your PowerShell works as it should, you will get a result as below.