Windows Server 2012 – Microsoft Cloud Infrastructure Technical Journal

New Windows 8/Server 2012 Operating Systems doesn’t allow you to Change Product key through system properties. Only way is to change the product key is to run PowerShell CMD let.

This is how it shows at system properties. You may activate but not change the key. activating without installing a valid key wont be possible too.

So simply run PowerShell in privileged (run as admin) mode and type below lines step by step.

slmgr -upk (this uninstalls the current Product Key)

slmgr -ipk XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX (replace X’es with your Key – this installs the new Product Key) You will see below message if your key is valid with media.

Now direct to system properties and click "Activate"

That’s it and enjoy your Genuine OS..

This is a bad? news for SharePointers out there which still has a good news inside as well ;). who’s going to deploy SharePoint 2010 on Windows Server 2012? Keep a note below.

The Bad News Is – As per Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 does not compatible with Server 2012 platform and we have to wait till the SharePoint 2010 SP 2 released which will contain the patches and updates accordingly.

And here’s The Good News -Yes We have an workaround for this.

Though MS says that we have to wait till the SP 2 released, I cannot because somebody is waiting for the solution out there and there’s no excuse for it, couldn’t revert back my Server in to 2008 R2 as well. So started dig down in to a workaround and got finally SP 2010 on Server 2012 installed and configured nicely, Tons of thanks for the web community who Shares their experiences all over the world for others (I’m community a Lover…)

So, From the point of prerequisites preparation you will get below issues.

1. Prerequisites installer gives an incompatibility pop up (still you can go ahead by saying ‘Run Program without Help’)

2. Even Though you have got all prerequisites Installed either manually or through a script, SharePoint Server Installer still says ‘Windows Server Roles or Features required by this product are not Enabled’.

3. Let’s say you have passed all above barriers somehow. Still you get some other issues after installing and provisioning the farm.

3.1 Farm Configuration Wizard Fails

3.2 Local Farm Not Accessible via PowerShell. Again the compatibility issue.( "The local farm is not accessible. Cmdlets with FeatureDependencyId are not registered")

Let’s see how we can get this done and here are the workarounds you have.

Note : None of these workarounds are officially supported by Microsoft and still the best solution for now is to have SharePoint 2010 on Windows Server 2008 R2.

If you are Installing SharePoint server 2010 on SQL Server 2012, make sure you have the media which has SharePoint 2010 SP1 included. None SharePoint SP 1 doesn’t support SQL 2012.

Workaround 01 – Automated PowerShell installer Script (This will save hours for you)

Craig Luccier has done a great job here – http://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/sharepoint/SharePoint-2010-and-dee17600. This single PowerShell monster resolves all above issues. Basically –

installs all of the Windows Server 8 beta Roles/Features necessary to run SharePoint 2010
Change the default IIS 8 App Pool .NET Framework to v2.0
Downloads and install the SharePoint 2010 Prerequisites
The SP 2010 installer doesn’t work issues

Running this script before you Install SharePoint will do everything above so nothing to be done manually. Just go ahead and install SharePoint right after this.

Workaround 02 – Get everything manually prepared your self (Time consuming but interesting !)

I didn’t go through the above PowerShell script as I needed to know each and every points basically what we fix and where. So here are steps with detailed descriptions on the manual workaround which worked for me.

1.Installing Prerequisites

Download and install these packages

Microsoft Chart Controls for Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5

Microsoft Filter Pack 2.0 (Available in PrerequisiteInstallerFilesFilterPack as well)

Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Native Client

Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 ADOMD.NET

Microsoft Sync Framework 1.0

Enable Windows features and roles via Server manager. To do this, Direct to Server manager –> Manage –> Add roles and features and Select below roles.

Go Forward and select Windows identity Foundation 3.5 for .Net framework 3.5 under features. It’s good so you don’t have to download It anymore as Serer 2012 contains the feature out of the box.

Below List of services need to be selected under IIS Role.

Go ahead and install them and that’s all from the Prerequisites side.

2. Installing SharePoint

Go and run the Setup.exe and you will get the issue no 2 I have mentioned above ‘Windows Server Roles or Features required by this product are not Enabled’. Don’t worry, one guy out there has done a great job. It’s all about just Downloading Hand.ServerManagerCmdEmul – Binaries from here and copy ServerManagerCmd file in to – C:\Windows\system32 in your SharePoint Server. Additionally from there you can get the Hand.ServerManagerCmdEmul – Sources project file as well.

Boom ! You wont see that error now. So Go ahead and get the product installed.

Once you complete the installation you will notified for product configuration wizard. Go ahead and get your farm configured. End of the wizard, again the next issue will pop up. Yes the issue number 3.1 which I have mentioned above, ‘Configuration failed’. This is because SharePoint 2010 needs .Net farmework 2.0 in IIS App Pools.

At this stage, all the app pools and sites has been created under IIS. Let’s go there and have a look. Yes they are !

But all are having .Net v4.0 and this has to be changed in to 2.0

Right click on each pool –> advanced settings –> and set the .Net version to 2.0 (ignore the .Net v4.5 and .Net v4.5 Classic) it should look like this once you done.

Now Run the Product Configuration Wizard again and it should complete successfully.

Here we go.. ! Your Central Admin loaded.

3. Fixing SharePoint Management Shell Issue

In order to make use of the powershell commands with sharePoint 2010 on Server 2010, we need to switch the powershell version back to version 2.

Note: This will not uninstall version 3, it will simply launch a new powershell instance that uses version 2.

Right click on SharePoint Management Shell –> Go to File Location –> Get the properties of the Shell Shortcut –>

replace the Existing Target value in to – C:\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\PowerShell.exe -version 2.0 -NoExit " & ‘ C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\14\CONFIG\POWERSHELL\Registration\\sharepoint.ps1 ‘ "