Creating a MOSS / Office Demo setup

Almost every session I train on MOSS, some guys (and girls) ask me about the setup of my laptop. I usually redirect them to this blog to read the installation script, but since that was written for B2TR it needed an update.

So here it is: a new installation script for the demo environment I use during the MOSS sessions. This time all the products are released and only some add-ins to Visual Studio are in Beta.

Have fun with it! Afterwards you'll have a demo environment with:

  • Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition R2
  • .NET 3.0 Framework
  • SQL Server 2005
  • SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services
  • SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services
  • Office 2007 Professional
  • Sharepoint Designer
  • Microsoft Office Sharepoint Server 2007 Enterprise Edition
  • Visual Studio .NET 2005
  • Microsoft® Visual Studio® 2005 Extensions for Windows® Workflow Foundation
  • Visual Studio Tools for Office 2005 SE
  • Visutal Studio extensions for Windows Sharepoint Services 3.0

You can use this installation guide if you want to create your own MOSS installation. (Make sure you got a good system with a lot of memory if you want to have all these products on a single system!)

Installing Windows Server 2003

  • Start with a default installation of Windows Server
  • Install all the available updates from Windows Update
  • Add the following components:
    • IIS 6
    • ASP.NET
    • DNS
    • SMTP
  • Install the Microsoft Loopback network adapter and assign it a fixed IP address of 192.168.1.1
  • Start DCPromo and create a new Active Directory Forest
    • For my setup , I created a moss.contoso.com AD
    • If the Wizard asks you for the DNS settings, allow it to create and set up your DNS
  • Start the DNS MMC
  • In the DNS MMC, create three new CNAME Records pointing to your DC A record for the 192.168.1.1 IP, call them:
    • Portal.moss.contoso.com
    • Team.moss.contoso.com
    • Mysite.moss.contosos.com
    • SharedServices.moss.contoso.com
  • Start the Active Directory Users And Computers Snap-in
  • Add a new user
    • Name: SqlService
    • Member of:
      • Distributed COM Users
  • Create a copy of this user and call it
    • Name: MossService
  • Add the pop3 component from Add / Remove Programs
    • Setup the pop3 component, make sure it is integrated with your active directory
    • Create a mailbox for administrator
    • Start the service from the pop3 mmc snap-in
  • Edit the 'Microsoft POP3 Service' in the Services Snap-in, set it to start automatically.
  • Open the Domain Controller Security Policy from Administrative Tools
  • At the Local Policies, User Rights Assignment level
    • Allow SqlService and MossService to act as part of the Operating System
    • Allow Domain Users to log on locally

Installing SQL Server 2005

  • Start the setup.exe for SQL Server and install all products. Make sure you install the Adventureworks sample databases as well!

Installing Visual Studio .NET 2005

  • Install Visual Studio make sure you install:
    • C# and / or VB.NET
  • Install .NET 3.0 Framework which you can download here
  • Install Microsoft® Visual Studio® 2005 Extensions for Windows® Workflow (download here)

Installing Office 2007 Professional

  • Install a normal Office 2007 professional installation
  • Start at least one application and activate the installation.
  • Go to Add / Remove programs and select 'Change' for the Office 2007 Professional installation
  • Select the Infopath .NET Programmability feature to be installed.

Installing VSTO

  • Download and Run the vstor.exe setup (download here)

Installing WSS Extensions

  • Download and install the Visutal Studio extensions for Windows Sharepoint Services 3.0 (download here)

Installing SDKs

  • Download and run the SDK´s for WSS and MOSS (download here and here)

Installing Sharepoint Designer

  • Install the Sharepoint designer

Installing MOSS

  • Start the MOSS installation.
  • In the Wizard select the 'Complete Installation' option
  • In the Database screen:
    • Use the default instance for the MOSS database (name is: SharedServices.moss.contoso.com)
    • Use SQLService as the account to connect to this instance

Configuring MOSS Services

  • On the Sharepoint Central Administration 3.0 site:
    • Select Operations
    • Select Services on Server
  • Start the "Windows Sharepoint Services Web Application"
  • Start the "Windows Sharepoint Services Search"
    • Use the MossService account for all the credential questions
  • Start the Office Sharepoint Server Search
  • Start the Excel Calculation Services

Note: After installation of the MOSS Services I got 500 errors when I accessed the Central Administration site. Waiting for a few minutes resolved this.

Configuration MOSS Shared Services

  • On the Sharepoint Central Administration 3.0 site:
    • Select Application Management
  • Select "Create or configure this farm's shared services"
    • Select "New SSP"
    • Select "Create a new web application"
  • Setup the new webapplication:
    • Use port 80
    • Use SharedServices.moss.contoso.com as the hostheader name
  • Use the MossService account for the Application Pool credentials
  • Repeat the steps above to create another web application for the mysite.moss.contoso.com hostheader.
  • Press Ok, you'll see a new screen now in which you can create the Shared Service Provider
  • Use the SqlService account for the SSP Credentials
  • Select the mysite.moss.contoso.com as the web application you want to host your mysites on.

After you finished this screen, the server will take some time to create your shared services!

Creating the Team site

  • On the Sharepoint Central Administration 3.0 site:
    • Select Application Management
    • Select "Create or extend Web Application"
  • Select the default web application
    • Set the host header for the default web application to Team.moss.contoso.com
  • Press Ok
  • Create a new Site Collection
    • Set the title to "WSS Team site"
    • Set the owner to administrator
    • Select the Team site template

Creating the Portal site

  • On the Sharepoint Central Administration 3.0 site:
    • Select Application Management
    • Select "Create or extend Web Application"
  • Select "Create a new web application"
  • Setup the new webapplication:
    • Use port 80
    • Use portal.moss.contoso.com as the hostheader name
  • Use the MossService account for the Application Pool credentials
  • Select the available index from the dropdown box
  • Press Ok
  • Create a new Site Collection
    • Set the title to "Portal"
    • Set the owner to administrator
  • Select the enterprise tab and select the collaboration portal site template

Now you have created:

A team site at http://team.moss.contoso.com

A portal site at http://portal.moss.contoso.com

A Shared Services provider at http://sharedservices.moss.contoso.com

Your mysites are hosted at http://mysite.moss.contoso.com

Now finish your installation by creating demo users to use on your portal and team sites. You can use Outlook 2007 to connect to the pop3 and smtp services to use the alert and e-mail functionality.