Without going into the full history of differences between Windows SharePoint Server 3.0 (WSS) and the more advanced Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (MOSS) it’s fair to say that both server technologies have sufficient shared components and functionality to ensure to allow most of your basic requirements to be met by installing WSS 3.0 SP2. MOSS 2007 is built upon WSS 3.0 technology with additional useful extras (such as the ability to use web based forms for data collection in MOSS Enterprise). However, for most small business and fledgling companies, WSS 3.0 will do fine. Get in touch with us if you have any specific questions you would like us to answer or if you’d like to buy in some of our expertise for one or more of your projects.
We’re in the process of developing a variety of articles which show you how to exploit many of the inherent features within Windows SharePoint Server 3.0. Before we do this, we thought we’d go through the process of installing Windows SharePoint Server 3.0 SP2 onto a VMWare virtual machine running an evaluation version of Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Standard. Although fairly basic, there are some additional feature of Windows which need to be installed prior to attempting the installation.
We begin by looking at the server desktop, where we’ve already downloaded and saved the installation file – link in our links section.
WSS requires a number of additional Windows components. The easiest way to install these is by installing the Application Server role from within Server Manager.
From the resultant screen, you only need to install the first set of components.
The following required components shall then be installed which will provide WSS with the appropriate web server and .NET framework features.
Upon successful installation, you should check the results windows to ensure all components have been installed correctly. In the example below, the system is telling us that the system has not yet been configured to download and install Windows Updates, but all other components are in place.
The Windows Server Manager screen shall then update to show the Application Server role has successful been installed. WSS does not require any future modifications to the standard Windows Server 2008 setup.
Next, right click on the SharePoint installation file and choose “Run as administrator”. Click continue on any subsequent screens and accept all defaults. The application shall then extract the necessary installation files, as below.
To continue, accept the licence agreement.
We selected the Basic installation, so that we could explore what features were available with just a bog standard installation.
The installation routine will then begin in earnest.
Once the installaton routine has completed, you then need to configure your new installation of WSS.
Click on Next to continue the installation process.
And then click on Yes to allow the relevant services to be restarted to complete the post installation configuration.
The system will then progress through ten subsequent stages of variable length.
Your configuration is complete when you see this screen …
Click on Finish and then log into the system with an account on the physical server or virtual machine with administrator permissions.
You’re then free to begin customising your new site collection…
