First experiences using SharePoint 2016 Preview running on Windows 2016 Preview and SQL 2016 Preview. We have some exciting times ahead. The possibilities of Windows Server 2016 look really phenomenal. Windows Server 2016 will bring elastic and resilient fabric to a datacenter near you. The introduction of shielded virtual machines will take away some of the last objections to using cloud services, such as VM theft. Imagine what we can deliver with SQL and SharePoint 2016 on top. Here at Sogeti we are very eager to learn and experience this new technology. So we are busy with several aspects: Business advantages of SharePoint 2016 Preview (click here to download) Installing and configuring SharePoint 2016 Preview Building Apps on SharePoint 2016 Preview Upgrading SharePoint 2013 to 2016 Preview Previous issues with SP This part is all about our experience installing SharePoint 2016 Preview. It will mostly interest IT professionals, and maybe some developers trying to setup a dev box. We are dealing with preview software, so we were expecting some hick ups. Our first two installs failed, but 3d time was the good time. We were hoping to activate Visual Studio before we domain joined the SharePoint server. This because the domain join would cause us to loose internet connectivity, which we like to keep to allow the SP Pre-req installer to download the software pre-requisites. However, Visual Studio 2015 EE caused the SP Pre-req installer to fail. 1. Here is what did not work (our first try): Install Win 2016 Install Visual Studio 2015 EE Then Run SP Pre-req installer (does not reboot)
2. Here is what did not work (our second try): Install Win 2016 Install SharePoint Install Visual Studio 2015 EE Our second try caused the VM to report memory access violations on reboot. So conclusion, SharePoint Preview and Visual Studio 2015 EE don't like to live on the same server for now. So, we went on to install a separate Win 10 box with Visual Studio 2015 EE. How to install SP We install Win 2016 preview on a virtual machine. We can actually run Windows update on this OS which is currently in preview, a nice example of Devops.
There are some "all steps" guides available out on the internet. We won't go into that level of detail here, we'll just review the large steps; Change computer name to sp2016. Easier than typing the Windows generated name. Connect VM to internet Run Add-WindowsFeature NET- HTTP-Activation Powershell [ ]. Ah yes, you need to run this Powershell in order to run SharePoint 2016 on Windows 2016 preview. Installed SQL 2016 preview. It has some interesting options such as Master Data. If we ever have a lot of time, we need to examine a little more closely. Ran SharePoint installer The product key from the Microsoft installation guide " SharePoint Server 2016 Preview Quick Start Guide.pdf" does not work, use NQTMW-K63MQ-39G6H- B2CH9-FRDWJ
Some things we noted during the installation: mostly SharePoint 2016 screens look 100% like SharePoint 2010, except these: On the "Select the service applications and services you want to run in your farm" we see some new options such as project Server and the option to directly specify which services we want to run. This is nice. We have had some customers experiencing serious delays (hours) in running User Profile Import when Claims to Windows Token Service was not running.
And some new options to explore at end of config wizard: Central Admin and the default time site looks largely unchanged:
So now, we are going onto the installation of a separate IIS Application/Windows server which will run the Apps. So IIS has a nice new look for the default website:, We'll write a separate document about Apps in SharePoint 2016. Article written by Wim De Groote, Expert Leader Collaboration and Information Management / ECM, Sogeti Belgium. You can contact him via: wim.de.groote@sogeti.be.