Now that you have captured your bootable virtual hard drive that was prepared for SharePoint Installation, you can apply that to another active partition or a virtual hard drive and then install whichever flavour of SharePoint you please!

As seen in the earlier post, capturing a virtual hard drive to create a Windows Image File is time consuming (compared to taking a snapshot in VMWare or Hyper-V) and memory intensive as well, however the advantage is that you can leverage on bare metal power – like having dual boot or multi-boot environment on your laptop.

So let’s apply the Windows Image File to the virtual hard disk or you could this another partition as well.

This completes the series & I hope it has been of value to you.

Related posts:

1. Capturing VHD To WIM
2. Create a bootable VHD
3. Attach VHD and boot OS in Hyper-V

Applying WIM To VHD was published on Alpesh Nakar's Blog

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Once you have finished with the task of preparing the virtual machine, it’s time to create a Windows Image File (WIM) for re-use at a later stage.

Navigate to the folder where you have imagex.exe

Run this command

D:\Virtualisation\imagex.exe /capture m: d:\justsharepoint.wim “NKR”

Figure here under explains the command

/capture m: = the virtual hard drive where we have installed and configured Windows Server 2008R2, Active Directory,SQL Server 2008 R2 etc. as per the previous post.

Capturing an image is a memory intensive process!

Of course nothing like taking a snapshot, it is slow to capture but then you get bare metal power!

This image took 22 minutes and 24 seconds.

That’s it!

Next post in the series will show you how this can be applied to another partition on the drive or another virtual hard drive.

Related posts:

1. Create an Operating System VHD from DVD
2. Reimaging SharePoint VMs on the fly!
3. Create a bootable VHD

Capturing VHD To WIM was published on Alpesh Nakar's Blog

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Quick recap: In the earlier post, we have created a vhd and enabled the vhd to be bootable.

In this post, I am now logged into the vhd and ready to prepare my virtual machine for installing SharePoint 2010.

This is what we need to have configured, before we can even get started with the installation of SharePoint 2010.

1. Windows Roles and Features
   1. Active Directory
   2. Desktop Experience
   3. SMTP
   4. Windows PowerShell ISE
2. Populate Active Directory with sample users
3. Create Service Accounts for installation and management of SharePoint 2010
4. Disable IE Enhanced Security
5. Enable Remote Desktop
6. Installation and configuration of Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2
7. Installation of hmailserver
8. Installation of SharePoint 2010 Pre-requisite installers
9. Firewall and Anti-Virus

Windows Server 2008 R2 Features

Active Directory

I will not walk you through on how to install Active Directory Role, but will point out resources that you can refer for populating your active directory with sample users.

Once the active directory is installed on your demo server, next step is to enable features.

Windows Roles and Features

• Todd Klindt’s Blog Post – Setup a test environment
• Set it up manually

Populate Active Directory with sample users

• One of the steps outlined above
• Download the batch file to populate dummy users for SharePoint OR
• Creating 100 AD Users with PowerShell

Create Service Accounts for SharePoint 2010

All accounts will be domain users. Specific permissions are listed in the next table.

Specific Permissions that you need to assign

Installation and configuration of Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2

Installation of SQL Server 2008 R2 as per these settings

Sample Databases

Download Sample Databases for Microsoft SQL Server 2008R2. Install.

SQL Configuration Manager

Open SQL Configuration Manager and under SQL Server Network Configuration, click Protocols and enable Named Pipes

SQL Management Studio

In SQL Management Studio, create a new login for dom
ain\sa-spinstall and add it to the dbcreators and securityadmin roles

Install hMailserver

Download hMailserver

Installation of hMailserver & configuration of hMailserver for SharePoint

Installation of SharePoint 2010 Pre-requisite installers

• Online or Download the prerequisites
• Install prerequisites from a network share
• Installing SharePoint 2010 prerequisites offline from a local path using arguments file

Installation of Anti-Virus

Earlier, I had blogged on how you can install an unmanaged client of Microsoft Forefront. Refer to the blog post and install the anti-virus.

Quick Recap

That’s it! We are now done creating an image with

1. Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 (with Service Pack 1)
2. Active Directory – Sample Users and Managed Service Accounts for SharePoint 2010
3. Installation and configuration of Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2
4. Installation of hmailserver
5. Installation of SharePoint 2010 Pre-requisite installers
6. Installation of anti-virus

Now that we have the virtual machine ready for installation of SharePoint 2010, in the next post (which will be really a very very short post compared to this one) we will make the final move before installing SharePoint 2010!

Related posts:

1. Preparing for WSS4 Installation on Windows7
2. SharePoint: WSS Installation On A DC – PSConfig Goodness
3. TechNet Virtual Lab: 2007 Microsoft Office System

Preparing Virtual Machine for SharePoint Installation was published on Alpesh Nakar's Blog

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I am interested in this service pack more then ever, for a reason – self service recovery of site collections and sites! As a site collection administrator, if your user has deleted a site what options do you have to recover them?

If you have a recent backup (which you would) and on-site (which you should not) then out of the box you can recover the site from an unattached content database… but that’s going to cost – time and resources.

With this Service Pack 1, SharePoint Administrators  will be able to recover sites from the recycle bin as easily as recovering end user content – libraries, lists and items.

I have always reiterated in my training and conference sessions, that you could recover end user content from the recycle bin but not sites… which will change with the release of the SharePoint Service Pack 1.

Post release, I will show you how easy it is!

To know what’s coming in SharePoint 2010 Service Pack 1, head over to the SharePoint Team Blog

Related posts:

1. SharePoint Portal Server 2003 Service Pack 3
2. Windows SharePoint Services Service Pack 3 (SP3)
3. Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2 (32-bit x86)

Looking forward to this Service Pack 1! was published on Alpesh Nakar's Blog

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1. Apply an image to a vhd
2. Apply an image to an active partition

So how about creating a base image and then capture that in a WIM (Windows Image) that you can backup and reuse whenever you want, instead of having to install Windows Server 2008 R2 OS and SQL and the works!

Once you have this base wim captured, apply this to the vhd that you will boot into and in turn leverage on full 8GB RAM or 16GB…. bare metal power!

I have planned a couple of blog posts to walk you through this process, so stay tuned.

To get started, create a vhd that you can boot into using this technique.

Steps make your vhd bootable are as follows:

1. Open Diskpart
2. Select vdisk file=C:\.VHD
3. Attach Vdisk
4. select part 1
5. active
6. Assign letter=Z
7. exit
8. Now, at the command prompt, change to Z:\Windows\System32
9. Run, BCDboot.exe Z:\Windows /s Z:\

Once you have the vhd ready, boot into the virtual machine and configure.

In the next post, I will detail the steps I have taken to configure my virtual machine in terms of preparing it for installing SharePoint 2010 on it for demonstration purposes.

Related posts:

1. Attach VHD and boot OS in Hyper-V
2. Free Virtual Hard Drive/Vault software with On the Fly 128-bit encryption for Windows Vista
3. Create an Operating System VHD from DVD

Reimaging SharePoint VMs on the fly! was published on Alpesh Nakar's Blog

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That’s very generous of Joel and I would like to thank him for this!

I have just signed up online and now have access to this book.

Use Coupon Code BMFJAZG at https://ssl.safaribooksonline.com/safarienabled or if you want a hard copy you can order it from here or from where ever you prefer to purchase your books

In addition to Joel’s awesome book, Microsoft has released heaps of resources to get you going. Some of the upgrade specific resources are listed under, quotes from relevant site pages:

Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010

Guide for administrators and IT professionals for upgrading to Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010. (Download Word document)

Download Models (pdf, vsd, xps)

• Upgrade planning
• Upgrade approaches
• Test your upgrade process

Upgrade Guide From TechNet (SharePoint Foundation 2010) Link

Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010

Download Models (pdf, vsd, xps)

• Upgrade planning
• Upgrade approaches
• Upgrade services
• Test your upgrade process

Upgrade Guide From TechNet (SharePoint Server 2010) Link

Related posts:

1. Aussie First Internet Facing Site on SharePoint 2010
2. New SharePoint 2010 Forums
3. SharePoint 2010 Beta and Exchange 2010 VHD Download

SharePoint 2010: Upgrading and Migrating was published on Alpesh Nakar's Blog

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1. This beta is not supported and you CANNOT upgrade the installation to RTM when it’s released. This Beta should only be used for evaluation purpose.
2. Windows Server 2008 R2 requires a hotfix which is not yet released to have the service applications running so I don’t recommend to use that now. Web Server Editions are not supported.

Before you install SharePoint 2010 Beta

1. Install WCF FIX: A hotfix that provides a method to support the token authentication without transport security or message encryption in WCF is available for the .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 (Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2 – link not activated yet)
2. On Windows Server 2008, additional files are needed.
   1. .Net Framework 3.5 SP1 .NET Framework 3.5 Service Pack 1 (Full Package) KB959209 KB967190
   2. PowerShell V2 RTM  http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=d37e25cf-db05-4b23-a852-cdf865d81b82&displaylang=en
3. Prepare SQL Server 2005/2008 environment.
   1. SQL Server 2005 SP3 and CU3
   2. SQL Server 2008 SP1 and CU2
4. Pre-requisites for SharePoint 2010 Beta
   1. Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Native Client:
      http://download.microsoft.com/download/3/5/5/35522a0d-9743-4b8c-a5b3-f10529178b8a/sqlncli.msi
   2. Microsoft "Geneva" Framework Runtime
      http://download.microsoft.com/download/F/3/D/F3D66A7E-C974-4A60-B7A5-382A61EB7BC6/MicrosoftGenevaFramework.amd64.msi
   3. Microsoft Sync Framework Runtime v1.0 (x64)
      http://download.microsoft.com/download/C/9/F/C9F6B386-824B-4F9E-BD5D-F95BB254EC61/Redist/amd64/Microsoft%20Sync%20Framework/Synchronization.msi
   4. Microsoft Chart Controls for Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5
      http://download.microsoft.com/download/c/c/4/cc4dcac6-ea60-4868-a8e0-62a8510aa747/MSChart.exe
   5. Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Analysis Services ADOMD.NET
      http://download.microsoft.com/download/A/D/0/AD021EF1-9CBC-4D11-AB51-6A65019D4706/SQLSERVER2008_ASADOMD10.msi

Install SharePoint 2010 Beta

1. Setup the farm using complete farm installation.
2. Go with configuration wizard to setup all service applications.
3. Read Config Profile Synchronization to setup profile sync.

Additional Steps for SharePoint Installation on a DC

1. If you are using SharePoint on DC, the following Windows PowerShell command would need to be run to enable Sandboxed Solutions.
   $acl = Get-Acl HKLM:\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\ComputerName
   $person = [System.Security.Principal.NTAccount]"Users"
   $access = [System.Security.AccessControl.RegistryRights]::FullControl
   $inheritance = [System.Security.AccessControl.InheritanceFlags]"ContainerInherit, ObjectInherit"
   $propagation = [System.Security.AccessControl.PropagationFlags]::None
   $type = [System.Security.AccessControl.AccessControlType]::Allow
   $rule = New-Object System.Security.AccessControl.RegistryAccessRule($person, $access, $inheritance, $propagation, $type)
   $acl.AddAccessRule($rule)
   Set-Acl HKLM:\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\ComputerName $acl

Additional Steps for Office Web Applications Installation on a DC

1. If you are trying to use Office Web Applications on DC, then the following commands need to be run to make the services work.

   $e = Get-SPServiceApplication | where {$_.TypeName.Equals("Word Viewing Service Application")}
   $e.WordServerIsSandboxed = $false
   $e.WordServerIsSandboxed

   $p = Get-SPServiceApplication | where {$_.TypeName.Equals("PowerPoint Service Application")}
   $p.EnableSandboxedViewing = $false
   $p.EnableSandboxedEditing = $false
   $p.EnableSandboxedViewing
   $p.EnableSandboxedEditing

   In the server’s c:\windows\system32\inetsrv\config\applicationHost.config
   Add the line below in the end of the dynamicTypes.
   <add mimeType="application/zip" enabled="false" />

   IISRESET

Enable Developer Dashboard

1. Enable Developer Dashboard and turn to OnDemand for troubleshooting page performance issues.

   1. STSADM: stsadm -o setproperty -pn developer-dashboard -pv OnDemand

   2. Windows PowerShell:

      $svc=[Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPWebService]::ContentService

      $ddsetting=$svc.DeveloperDashboardSettings

      $ddsetting.DisplayLevel=[Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPDeveloperDashboardLevel]::OnDemand

      $ddsetting.Update()

All content for this post is from Jie Li’s blog post more as note to self, for installing SharePoint 2010 Beta and Office 2010 Beta.

Related posts:

1. Preparing for WSS4 Installation on Windows7
2. Download Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 Beta
3. SharePoint: WSS Installation On A DC – Basics

SharePoint 2010 Installation was published on Alpesh Nakar's Blog

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