We used blank templates back in SharePoint 2010 days for various reasons but it isn’t there anymore as being hidden from 2013 onwards. As in this screenshot, when you open up Central Administration and try to create a Site Collection, “Blank Site” Template will not be visible in SharePoint 2013 or later versions.
Nevertheless, worry no further as this article will demonstrate the way to get it back just in case you badly need it. Just follow the steps (recommended to try in a test setup before you have it in production environment).
There are two ways to enable it again.
Method A:
This is a permanent change which allows you to use this template anytime. However, you can revert it back if not necessary. Find this folder in your SharePoint Server/s – C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\15\TEMPLATE\1033\XML
Then from there, open up WEBTEMP.xml file from the notepad and search for this tag line.
<Configuration ID=”1″ Title=”Blank Site” Hidden=”TRUE” ImageUrl=”/_layouts/15/images/stbs.png?rev=23″ Description=”A blank site for you to customize based on your requirements.” DisplayCategory=”Collaboration” AllowGlobalFeatureAssociations=”False” > </Configuration>
You can clearly see the Hidden attribute has been set to TRUE here on the 1st line. Make it back to “FALSE” and the tag should now look like below.
<Configuration ID=”1″ Title=”Blank Site” Hidden=”FALSE” ImageUrl=”/_layouts/15/images/stbs.png?rev=23″ Description=”A blank site for you to customize based on your requirements.” DisplayCategory=”Collaboration” AllowGlobalFeatureAssociations=”False” > </Configuration>
Save the changes and close the file then do a IIS reset on the target server/s.
Method B:
You can use PowerShell to create a site using Blank Site template as well. This is a temporary method where you just use the hidden template by calling it without seeing it in the “Create new site” choice list, and, you have to use PowerShell to provision the site.
Add-PSSnapin “Microsoft.SharePoint.PowerShell” Get-SPWebTemplate $template = Get-SPWebTemplate “STS#1”
Then run this: It will simply create a brand new site collection using the “Blank Site” template for you. There is no need of changing the backend if you choose this way, however, there’s no UI to get this done.
New-SPSite -Url “http://mantosospfarm/sites/NewSiteName” -OwnerAlias “Mantoso\SP_Admin” -Template $template
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