Step By Step Installation Of SharePoint Server 2019 Preview For Single Server Farm Topology

We know that SharePoint Server 2019 and Project Server 2019 preview are available, and I was excited by this news and thought to have it installed and check out what’s new.

The following article will have instructions to install SharePoint Server 2019 preview on Azure VM.

Let’s start by creating the virtual machine on Windows Azure platform. 

I have created a VM with image template ‘SQL Server 2017 Standard on Windows Server 2016’.

I have chosen ‘Standard B4Ms’ sizes configuration.

And it will take some time to create the VM.  Following are the configurations shown on the created VM on Azure.

Now as we have Virtual Machine ready with SQL server 2017, we can start with SharePoint Server 2019 installation.

1. Let’s first download the setup from here.
   
   
2. I have chosen ‘en-us\16.0.10711.37301_OfficeServer_none_ship_x64_en-us_dvd\officeserver_en-us.img’ installation language for downloading installation, its 3.8GB size.
   
   
   
   
3. Click Save to copy the disc image file to your computer.
   
   
4. Right click on the ‘officeserver_en-us.img’ file and select Mount option.
   
   
   
   
5. Navigate to the mounted drive.
   
   
6. Run splash.hta to launch the SharePoint Server 2019 Start page.
   
   
7. Click Install software prerequisites to launch the Microsoft SharePoint 2019 Products Preparation Tool.
   
   
   
   
8. Follow the instructions in the tool to complete the installation of the software prerequisites.
   
   
   
   
9. Select ‘Finish’ to restart the server and complete the installation of prerequisites.
   
   
10. After restarting,  if the image file is not mounted automatically then repeat step 4, 5 and 6 to run the splash.hta file.
    
    
11. On the SharePoint Server 2019 Start page, click ‘Install SharePoint Server’ to launch Microsoft SharePoint Server 2019 Public Preview Setup.
    
    
    
    
12. When prompted, provide a product key. You can use the trial product key from this article's installation instructions section. The trial period is 180 days. You can convert to a licensed installation at any time during the trial or after the trial has expired by entering the appropriate product key in Central Administration.
    
    

13. Sit back and relax to complete the installation.
    
    
    
    

14. After completing the setup SharePoint Product configuration wizard will be started.
    
    
    
    
15. Select ‘Yes’ at the following screen.
    
    
    
    
16. As we are creating a new farm, select as shown in the below screen shot.
    
    
    
    
17. Select Next on the below screen.
    
    
    
    
18. In the next screen we need to provide DB server details and Database access account details.
    
    
    
    
19. After giving user details, using which we have created the VM, I was getting the following error: “The specified user <User name> is a local account. Local accounts should only be used in standalone mode
    
    

20. I thought we need to create a SQL user and pass that to continue the setup.
    
    
21. Hence I connected to SQL server management studio.
    
    
    
    
22. I have created a new SQL user.
    
    
    
    
23. And granted all the roles to that account.
    
    
    
    
24. Now selecting the newly-created user also was not helping me and giving me the same error as given in step no 19.
    
    
25. After that I tried creating a new local user account and added that to Local administrator group and used those users in SQL. This also didn't help me and I got stuck for some time.
    
    
26. After searching for the error we came across SP 2016 post when the solution was described to use the New-SPConfigurationDatabase cmdlet.
    
    New-SPConfigurationDatabase -DatabaseName SharePoint_ConfigDB -DatabaseServer [ServerName] -AdministrationContentDatabaseName SharePoint_ContentDB -Passphrase (ConvertTo-SecureString [password] -AsPlaintext -Force) -FarmCredentials (Get-Credential) -localserverrole SingleServerFarm

27. Please read about at cmdlet New-SPConfigurationDatabase , I used ‘SingleServerFarm’ option for localserverrole parameter as I am installing on a single server.
    
    
28. This command will take some time and create a configuration database.
    
    
29. After successful completion run the SharePoint product configuration wizard again.
    
    

30. This time it succeeded and we are able to proceed.
    
    
    
    
31. Click Next to continue with configuration. And wizard will continue as follows.
    
    
    
    
    
    
32. Now the final configuration task has started and installation has continued.
    
    
    
    
33. Installation success message is shown as following.
    
    
    
    
34. Now we are able to access SharePoint central administration.
    
    

We are now free to create a web application and site collection. Modern site templates are available at ‘Template selection’ step.

Hope this article will help to save some valuable time while setting up SharePoint 2019 preview.

Thanks for reading.