13 thoughts on “SharePoint 2010 (not) in a Workgroup”

  1. Tristan, you CAN set up a SP2010 installation WITHOUT AD. Simply run the SP installer, then DO NOT run the wizard but create the Config and AdminContent databases with this PowerShell command (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff607838.aspx, sample at the bottom), and when you then run the Wizard choose “Do not disconnect from this farm”. You can even add further Managed Accounts with this command (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff607831.aspx).
    HTH
    Jennifer

  2. Hi Jennifer. Yeah, the New-SPConfigurationDatabase is the command that Neil Hodgkinson suggests in the From the Field blog that I linked to above. The upshot of this post was to identify the domain requirements for the User Profile and Search Service Applications (as of the Beta release), as well as SQL Express in Simple Mode. I realise some things have changed in RTM but we quickly found it untenable to try to develop for SP2010 for pretty much anything but WCM sites without User Profiles.

    Have you tested that Search works in a Workgroup as of RTM, out of curiosity? I would have expected that SDDL string error to get fixed for RTM and I haven’t seen anyone mention that it’s still a problem.

  3. Hi Tristan, I’ve just wasted 2 days with the RTM version …the problems you described still exist. The search error showed on both a fresh “complete” install of SSX10 as well as on an upgrade of an SPF10 installation. In the end I settled on a “Standalone” installation 😐

    I think the only workable setup right now for a complete install is using two VMs, with the AD being separated that way from the Dev VM. My current laptop doesn’t have enough RAM for that though. I guess I’ll have to get a new one.

    The RTM of SSX10 also has other problems. Health status reports that the version is about to expire and the Secure Store does indeed expire.

  4. Yeah, I’ve gone to a DC with 600MB (may be able to get away with less) and the SharePoint Server/SQL VM with 5GB. Seems to be working OK. I haven’t used SSX yet simply because we’re focused on the full version of SharePoint Server. Have you seen this TechNet article? http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/sharepoint2010setup/thread/73a8c9b0-88bf-4214-bf64-a9934af7be80. Really not a good idea but as they say there, maybe acceptable for a demo?

  5. Thanks for the link. I think that SSX got stitched with a hot needle, but in general the 2010 release strikes me as better than the 2007 release …at least a trend!

    I think you can go a bit lower with AD, as Wictor writes: http://www.wictorwilen.se/Post/My-SharePoint-2010-development-rigs.aspx, but you probably won’t see any difference on your other VMs if you add that 100MB you gain.

    I am doing product development for SSX and need to have a test machine that has the “Standalone” configuration anyway (as I assume that many people actually do use it). All our other servers are hosted in a domain environment, so no problem otherwise.

    Enjoy your day!

  6. Hey Jennifer,

    I just re-read your comments here and thought you might be interested in something I stumbled across the other day. I was watching Ben Armstrong (Virtual PC Guy)’s TechEd video on the forthcoming Dynamic Memory for Hyper-V in Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 and he said that as soon as he turned it on his Domain Controllers started consuming upwards of 1GB memory, although he had never seen any indications that this was necessary before. It will be interesting to see how our assumptions about VM memory allocation change once this comes out.

    Cheers,

    Tristan

  7. Hi Tristan,

    you must have been reading my mind… I actually caught up on Server 2008 R2 SP1 a few days ago myself 🙂 BUT, I didn’t get to see Ben’s video. So, thanks for letting me know about this “side-effect” on using Dynamic Memory. I do hope they’ll fix that for RTM because it certainly is not only counter-productive but also bad for Hyper-V’s otherwise near perfect image in the market.

    In general though Microsoft is still hesitant to recommend virtualizing AD (and SQL Server), as can be read here:
    http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff607811.aspx

    I am however solely convinced that the advantages outweigh the risks, especially as we’ve had virtualized AD, SQL and ISA servers for over 2 years with no problems at all.

    Sunny greetings from Barcelona
    Jennifer

  8. Hey Jennifer,

    It’s not so much a side effect as an indication that (Ben’s) DCs were hungrier for memory than he realised. It may be that his home infrastructure generates a lot more demand on his DCs than a single SharePoint/SQL box. But one way or the other you can still set the maximum memory for the DC where it was, I was just thinking that we may find out that a lot of what we assume we know about VMs might be proved wrong. It’s a really fundamental change to memory management.

    Agreed, re: virtualisation. We’ve started virtualising production (hosted) SQL with our new website project and are going to see how it goes. Fingers crossed!

    Cheers,

    Tristan

  9. Fingers crossed and thumbs pressed 😉

    Thanks btw also on the write-up of Ben’s video …that just saved me 75 mins of my weekend 🙂

  10. Hey Jennifer,

    I just stumbled across these comments again, which brought to mind some recent findings. I’ve recently been testing an environment with two DCs, one Windows 7 machine and one Windows Server 2008 Server which is generating all the load. This is on Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 Beta with Enterpise guests. The DCs occasionally blip above 600MB even in this limited configuration – they go as high as 620MB. I suspect once Dynamic Memory becomes the norm people will settle on something like 512MB-1024MB for DCs. But I thought it interesting that I occasionally did start to consume more than 600MB, and this is without anything as intense as SharePoint 2010.

    Cheers,

    Tristan

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