Installing WSS 3.0 on 2003 Server R2 / 64 Bit

Install IIS

Add the IIS server role via the “Manage your server” panel.

If you’re running on a 64 bit OS (which is the way of the future) things are, as usual, a little more painful. First, let’s disable the quirky 32/64bit mixed mode in IIS and enable full 64 bit .NET support (basics from Dan Bartel’s site):

• Click Start, click Run, type cmd, and then click OK.
• Type the following command to disable the 32-bit mode:

cscript %SYSTEMDRIVE%\inetpub\adminscripts\adsutil.vbs SET W3SVC/AppPools/Enable32bitAppOnWin64 0

• Type the following command to install the version of ASP.NET 2.0 and to install the script maps at the IIS root and under:

%SYSTEMROOT%\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v2.0.50727\aspnet_regiis.exe -i

• Make sure that the status of ASP.NET version 2.0.40607 is set to Allowed in the Web service extension list in Internet Information Services Manager.

Note the build version of ASP.NET 2.0 may differ depending on what the currently released build version is.

Install WSS 3.0

WSS is the foundation underneath MOSS 2007. If running on 64 bit, don’t even bother installing the “Sharpoint Services” server role — it’s really a 32 bit version.

• Download WSS 3.0 including SP1 for 64 bit from Microsoft.

• If the setup terminates with the error that ASP.NET is not a registered web server extension in IIS, fire up the IIS command center and in “Web Service Extensions” change the status of ASP.NET from prohibited to allowed. Re-Run the installer.

• When faced with the option whether to install “Advanced” or “Basic” — just opt for basic. Advanced will simply allow you to specify the location of the content index file and whether you’d like a web front-end or standalone installation.

• Run through the admin wizard at the end when offered (it’ll set up the database etc).
• After this is done, you should be able to see the basic WSS portal by pointing your browser at your own computer.

Windows 2008 Server Musings

I am currently coordinating an effort building a reference architecture with Microsoft Sharepoint 2007, diving into a rich content model and service-enabling the front-end with the overall goal to use it as a “real” web content management. Our goal was to stick with the Microsoft toolstack (simply because we have free access to all products at work with Razorfish now being a Microsoft-owned company)

Our first idea was to start prototyping on the new Windows 2008 Server.

32 vs 64 Bit

Our initial gut instinct was to stick with what’s working, plus we where only installing on PCs with 4 Gigs of RAM. After the installation I tried to get Hyper-V (built-in virtualization) to work, however, Hyper-V is only supported on the 64 bit version of Windows. I then tried to install Virtual PC 2007 — it complained that the version of Windows I was using wasn’t compatible and that I at least needed to install IIS 6 compatibility modules.

We decided to re-install with the 64 bit version of Windows Server.

Hyper-V

As mentioned, Hyper-V requires 64 bit Windows. After installing all the optional patches and rebooting twice from Windows Update Hyper-V suddenly appeared. I proceeded to install a 64 bit Windows 2008 guest. Once it was installed and booted up I noticed it had no network access. Strange — Hyper-V was configured with a virtual adapter. As it turns out, the drivers for the virtual network adapter are part of the Windows Update patches for Server 2008 — so the guest couldn’t see the network without the updates and of course couldn’t download the updates without the network adapter — if Hyper-V wasn’t technically a CTP I’d be really pissed now. Luckily one can configure a “legacy network adapter” that a freshly installed guest can see at least long enough to fetch the updated drivers.

Hyper-V now runs along just fine with the small caveat that it randomly crashes with a nice message box “Worker process died”.

Verdict: This is not a stable development or even production environment yet.

MOSS 2007

At this point I decided to install MOSS 2007. After a download of the MOSS 2007 ISO the first installation attempt failed — Windows complained there were known compatibility issues with the software and the operating system. Now we downloaded the SP1 files for the WSS foundation and MOSS 2007. Unfortunately there is no consolidates ISO — you have copy the MOSS 2007 ISO to a temporary folder and manually extract the SP1 executables via the command line and copy the contents into the temporary folder with the ISO. The installation then fails with an error that the sample database cannot be set up.

Just trying to install WSS 3.0 SP1 by itself at least works fine.

Really?

At this point we decided to go back to Windows 2003 Server R2. Stay tuned for updates.

Impact of Green Computing

I found an interesting article linked off of Slashdot. As an technology architect I’m very familiar with load balancing strategies and round-robins, but I’ve admittedly never thought about the impact of the load balancing strategy onto power consumption.

It’s very obvious though, by evenly distributing load across servers you end up with many servers with medium load. By assigning more load to an active cluster of servers, a smaller set of stand-by servers could shut down into power saving mode.

That also gives a new meaning to the unfortunate “let’s throw more hardware at it” mentality. Next time remember to bring up carbon emissions when trying to sell a client on spending a little more time on code optimization.

Anyhow, check out the whitepaper right here.