Install Configuration Manager Prerequisites
The installation of Microsoft Configuration Manager requires may different roles and components to be installed prior to getting a functional MCM install up and running. Most of these are straight forward but making sure they are all installed is critical in ensuring there are no errors with the Prereq check and avoiding troubleshooting failures. Not all of these are strictly necessary depending on which roles will be used and what workloads are needed. I am an advocate of knowing how to do things manually but https://github.com/MSEndpointMgr/ConfigMgrPrerequisitesTool/releases does look promising to assist in downloading and installing the list. Maybe someday, I'll test it out.
Roles and Features:
- .NET Framework 3.5/4
- Internet Information Services (IIS)
- Remote Differential Compression (RDC)
- Background Intelligent File Transfer Service (BITS)
- Windows Server Update Services (WSUS)
Applications:
- Microsoft SQL Server
- Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio
- SQL Server Reporting Services
- SQL Report Viewer
- Windows Assessment and Deployment Toolkit (ADK)
- ADK Windows PE (Preinstallation Environment) Add-On
Install Roles and Features
As discussed in a previous step the roles and features can be installed with Install-WindowsFeature and validated with Get-WindowsFeature afterwards. The list needed is: Web-Windows-Auth, Web-ISAPI-Ext, Web-Metabase, Web-WMI, BITS, RDC, NET-Framework-Features, Web-Asp-Net, Web-Asp-Net45, NET-HTTP-Activation, NET-Non-HTTP-Activ.
Get-WindowsFeature | Where-Object {$_.InstallState -eq 'Installed'}
Display Name Name Install State
------------ ---- -------------
[X] File and Storage Services FileAndStorage-Services Installed
[X] Storage Services Storage-Services Installed
[X] Web Server (IIS) Web-Server Installed
[X] Web Server Web-WebServer Installed
[X] Common HTTP Features Web-Common-Http Installed
[X] Default Document Web-Default-Doc Installed
[X] Directory Browsing Web-Dir-Browsing Installed
[X] HTTP Errors Web-Http-Errors Installed
[X] Static Content Web-Static-Content Installed
[X] HTTP Redirection Web-Http-Redirect Installed
[X] Health and Diagnostics Web-Health Installed
[X] HTTP Logging Web-Http-Logging Installed
[X] Logging Tools Web-Log-Libraries Installed
[X] Request Monitor Web-Request-Monitor Installed
[X] Tracing Web-Http-Tracing Installed
[X] Performance Web-Performance Installed
[X] Static Content Compression Web-Stat-Compression Installed
[X] Security Web-Security Installed
[X] Request Filtering Web-Filtering Installed
[X] Windows Authentication Web-Windows-Auth Installed
[X] Application Development Web-App-Dev Installed
[X] .NET Extensibility 3.5 Web-Net-Ext Installed
[X] .NET Extensibility 4.8 Web-Net-Ext45 Installed
[X] ASP.NET 3.5 Web-Asp-Net Installed
[X] ASP.NET 4.8 Web-Asp-Net45 Installed
[X] ISAPI Extensions Web-ISAPI-Ext Installed
[X] ISAPI Filters Web-ISAPI-Filter Installed
[X] Management Tools Web-Mgmt-Tools Installed
[X] IIS Management Console Web-Mgmt-Console Installed
[X] IIS 6 Management Compatibility Web-Mgmt-Compat Installed
[X] IIS 6 Metabase Compatibility Web-Metabase Installed
[X] IIS 6 WMI Compatibility Web-WMI Installed
[X] .NET Framework 3.5 Features NET-Framework-Features Installed
[X] .NET Framework 3.5 (includes .NET 2.0 and 3.0) NET-Framework-Core Installed
[X] HTTP Activation NET-HTTP-Activation Installed
[X] Non-HTTP Activation NET-Non-HTTP-Activ Installed
[X] .NET Framework 4.8 Features NET-Framework-45-Fea... Installed
[X] .NET Framework 4.8 NET-Framework-45-Core Installed
[X] ASP.NET 4.8 NET-Framework-45-ASPNET Installed
[X] WCF Services NET-WCF-Services45 Installed
[X] TCP Port Sharing NET-WCF-TCP-PortShar... Installed
[X] Azure Arc Setup AzureArcSetup Installed
[X] Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS) BITS Installed
[X] IIS Server Extension BITS-IIS-Ext Installed
[X] Microsoft Defender Antivirus Windows-Defender Installed
[X] Remote Differential Compression RDC Installed
[X] Remote Server Administration Tools RSAT Installed
[X] Feature Administration Tools RSAT-Feature-Tools Installed
[X] BITS Server Extensions Tools RSAT-Bits-Server Installed
[X] System Data Archiver System-DataArchiver Installed
[X] Windows PowerShell PowerShellRoot Installed
[X] Windows PowerShell 5.1 PowerShell Installed
[X] Windows PowerShell 2.0 Engine PowerShell-V2 Installed
[X] Windows Process Activation Service WAS Installed
[X] Process Model WAS-Process-Model Installed
[X] .NET Environment 3.5 WAS-NET-Environment Installed
[X] Configuration APIs WAS-Config-APIs Installed
[X] WoW64 Support WoW64-Support Installed
[X] XPS Viewer XPS-Viewer Installed
Set Firewall Rules
Install ADK and PE Add-On
- Download the latest version of the ADK and ADK WinPE setup from Microsoft. These are updated with major Windows updates so change often.
- Run adksetup.exe and select Install the Windows Assessment and Deployment Kit to this computer. If running on multiple systems, it may be worthwhile to download to a centralized location to save some time.
- Determine if you want to allow Microsoft to collect data.
- Click Next and accept the license.
- Select which features should be intalled. At a minimum select Deployment Tools, Windows Preinstallation Envirornment, and the User State Migration Toolkit (USMT).
- Run adkwinpesetup.exe and keep all defaults. If you didn't allow the ADK to collect data, this should persist for the PE Add-ons.
Install SQL Components
Make sure to log into the server as a domain account with administrator. Using the local administrator makes permissions later very fun.
SQL Server 2019
- Download and launch SQL Server 2019 Evaluation Edition.
- Pick Custom for installation type.
- Provide a path to download the installation media. and click Install. This will download about 1.5 GB so will take a moment.
- Once completed, the SQL Server Installation Center will launch. Click Installation on the left menu
- Select 'New SQL Server stand-alone installation or add features to an existing installation'.
- I use the Evaluation copy of SQL Server. If this were a licensed version, the product key could be entered. Click Next
- Accept the license terms and click Next.
- It is recommended to allow checking for updates during the installation.
- There is a brief check for Install Rules that help identify potential issues. Windows Firewall will warn if it's on. Make sure the necessary rules are in place and click Next.
- On the Feature Selection screen, select the following and press Next.
- Database Engine Services
- SQL Serve Replicaiton
- Full-Text and Semantic Extractions for Search
- Data Quality Services
- Client Tools Connectivity
- Client Tools Backwards Compatibility
- Client Tools SDK
- SQL Client Connectivity SDK
- Master Data Services
- Leave the default instance (MSSQLSERVER) and click Next.
- On Server Configuration specify an account name and password to run SQL Server Agent and SQL Server Database Engine. I generally confirm the default Collation is still SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AS. Click Next which will validate credentials.
- On the Database Engine Configuration Page there are several settings than can be configured.
- Select Windows Authentication Mode and add the SCCMAdmins group to SQL Server Administrators.
- If this were a production environment, or multiple drives were in use, the Data Directories tab allows you to specify location for the databases, logs, and backup directories.
- TempDB allows you to specify where the TempDB resides and autogrowth settings. The Autogrowth (MB) should be set to 512 MB. The initial size for should also be increased to reserve space and speed up installation.
- The MaxDOP tab allows you to specify the maximum degree of parallelism or how SQL deals with multi-core CPUs.
- SQL Memory settings can be configured to use unlimited or set the Recommended value (max 75% of installed RAM).
- Finish clicking Next and Install to complete the Installation.
SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
- From the SQL Server Installation Server, clicking Install SQL Server Management Tools, will take you to a download page for SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS). Download and launch the setup. There are no options that need to be changed unless you are installing to a non-default drive/folder.
SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS)
- This is another where you can easily find the download link from the SQL Server Installation Center. Download and launch the setup.
- Select Install Reporting Services.
- I select the Evaluation version as I rebuild often. Like the full SQL Server installation you can also specify Developer/Express or provide the SQL key to license if called for.
- Accept the license and click Next.
- Select Install Reporting Services only and click Next.
- Change the installation path if desired and click Install.
- When complete, close the installation as it will be configured later.
If not done so already, now would be a great time to check for updates and reboot servers.