Step By Step SharePoint 2016 Preview Installation Guide

SharePoint 2016 Preview is available for public testing since August 24.This is not the final release of the product and, unlike 2013, 2016 does not have an in place upgrade to RTM once it’s available. So I would not recommend this for anything else other than a ‘2016 First Hand Experience’.

Hardware & Software Requirements

Microsoft recommends the following hardware as SP 2016 Preview Prerequisite.

Installation scenario	Deployment type and scale	RAM	Processor	Hard disk space
Single server role that uses SQL Server	Development or evaluation installation of SharePoint Server 2016 IT Preview with the minimum recommended services for development environments. For information, see Minimum recommended services for development environments.	12–16 GB	64-bit, 4 cores	80 GB for system drive 100 GB for second drive

DBMS required - Microsoft SQL Server 2014 Service Pack 1 (SP1).

However I have used a Windows Server 2012 R2 machine with 8GB RAM, 64 bit Dual Core Processor to act as the Application server as well as the Database server.

The Installation .iso file is available for download from the Microsoft download center.

Once the 2.8 GB iso file is downloaded. Mount the ISO file to a virtual drive.



Phase 1: Pre-requisite Installation

First Phase of Installation is running the pre-requisite installer. This will configure the environment with necessary IIS roles and download the prerequisite software. Make sure you have an active Internet Connection.

Go to the Mounted Virtual Drive and click on the ’ prerequisiteinstaller’ exe .



Clicking on this will open up the SP 2016 Products Preparation Tool.



Click on Next.



Accept the License Agreement to continue installation.





This will configure the necessary roles, updates registry entry, installs KB Updates and software required for the initialization of SP installation. As part of the Installation of Pre-requisites the installer would initiate a system restart once the ‘Cumulative Update Package 1 for Microsoft AppFabric 1.1 for Windows Server’ is installed.



Click finish and Restart the System. Once the System is up and running, Installer will automatically try to continue the installation. However since I had mounted the ISO temporarily the virtual drive was unmounted during restart and the Installer could not automatically continue with the installation.

You don’t have to worry if this happens to you , Go to the downloaded package and Mount the ISO once again .(To circumvent this issue, You can use some software like MagicISO to permanently mount the image) Click on the ‘prerequisiteinstaller’ and the installation will continue from where it was left off .



Click on Next. It will skip the earlier steps and continue with the remaining update/installation.



In some time Installer will show the Installation Complete window. If the Installer requests for system reboot, do it. Continue with the prerequisite installation until the following screen appears. Ideally the Installer does not request for a reboot more than twice.



This ends the Prerequisite Installation.

Phase 2: SharePoint Installation

Before we start of this section, we have to create an AD domain account and add it to the Local Administrators group which will be used as the Farm account for installation purposes. This will automatically be added as a Managed Account.

Once we are done with this go to the Virtual drive and click on setup exe.





Enter the product key as: NQTMW-K63MQ-39G6H-B2CH9-FRDWJ



Accept the agreement and click on continue.



Select the directory to which the files should be installed. I have kept the default value as it is . Click on ‘Install Now’.



The installation is underway and would take some time.



Once the Installation is completed the above screen would pop up . Check the ‘’Run the SharePoint Products Configuration Wizard now” checkbox.

Phase 3 : SharePoint Configuration Wizard

The final stage is the configuration of the already installed SharePoint.



Once the configuration wizard opens up click on Next, which will ask for a confirmation message as in the following screenshot:



Since the Configuration would require IIS restart, click on Yes so that it is handled automatically.



Currently, I have opted to choose a new single server farm.



In Database server name I have given the name of the server wher my SQL Server has been installed. SharePoint_Config is the default Config DB name.

Specify the Domain account credentials; we had created earlier, in the Database Account section. This account will be used to connect to the Config DB.



Enter the passphrase and click on next.



Specify the Server role which I have selected as ‘Single Server Farm Option’.



Specify the Port Number which will be used by the Central Administration Web Application. Unless you have any specific reason, keep the authentication provider as NTLM which is the default.



Click on Next.



We have almost reached the final lap of the installation. Clicking on Start the Wizard will help us start the Service Application using the Current Farm Account as the Managed Account. Check all the Service Application instances you want to have in your farm. Clicking on Next will create the Service Applications for you.



However if we want to manually create the Service Applications later by assigning a managed account separately for each service application you can click on ‘Cancel’ button near to ‘’No, I will configure everything myself “ .

Finally let’s do some icing on the Cake. Time to create a web application.



Click on Manage Web Applications. Click on New.



Specify the IIS Website Name and Port Number. Click on OK. This will create the Web application.

Next let’s create the site collection.



The site collection and root site is created.



The site looks much similar to a 2013 Team site.

In Ideal scenarios the Application server and Database server would be part of a multi-tier farm. Since this is a preview installation I have Installed SharePoint and SQL Server on a single stand-alone server.

As per the Microsoft road map SharePoint 2016 final release will happen somewhere around Q2 2016 .

Thanks for reading !