When you want to install SharePoint (Foundation) 2010, the first thing you have to do is install the prerequisites required to successfully complete your installation and run SharePoint. One of the annoying things about the prerequisite installation procedure is the fact that your machine does need internet access. In many cases, that’s no problem. But there are some cases where it’s impossible (due company/network restrictions) to have internet access on the machine where you want to install SharePoint.
There is a solution where you can install the prerequisites in an offline mode. In this post, I’ll explain each step how you can install SharePoint (Foundation) 2010 without an internet connection
1. Download and extract your SharePoint Installer
- The first step is to download SharePoint 2010 using an internet connected machine. You can download this using your MSDN subscription or using this link (for SharePoint Foundation 2010).
- Once your download is finished, go to the ‘C:\’ drive of your SharePoint machine, and create a new folder. Let’s call this folder ‘SharePointFiles‘.
- Copy/Paste your downloaded exe in this folder.
- Open a command line prompt and navigate to this folder ‘cd c:\SharePointFiles‘
- In the cmd, enter ‘SharePointFoundation /extract:c:\SharePointFiles‘ (the first term is the name of the downloaded exe, in my case the SP Foundation 2010 one)
- The command in the previous step will extract everything to your folder ‘c:\SharePointFiles‘
- Now you should also see the executable: PrerequisiteInstaller.exe which will allow us to install the prerequisites.
2. Download your prerequisites
- Using a machine connected to the internet, you have to download all components needed for SharePoint. You can find a list of all components required for SharePoint Foundation 2010 here and for SharePoint 2010 server here. In my case, I’m installing the Foundation Version. This is a clean list of items you have to download for the installation of a -recent- Windows 2008R2 machine:
- Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Native Client
- Hotfix for .NET Framework 3.5 Service Pack 1 KB976462)
- Windows Identity Foundation (KB974405) for Windows Server 2008 R2 / Windows Server 2008
- Microsoft Sync Framework v1.0
- Microsoft Chart Controls for Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5
- Microsoft Filter Packs
- Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Analysis Services ADOMD.NET
- Microsoft Server Speech Platform
- Microsoft Server Speech recognition language for English
- SQL Server 2008 R2 Reporting Services Add-in for Microsoft SharePoint Technologies 2010
- When you’re ready downloading this files, copy them to your SharePoint (to be) machine in the folder ‘c:\SharePointFiles\PrerequisiteInstallerFiles‘
3. Create a PrerequisiteInstaller.Arguments file
- The next step is to create a PrerequisiteInstaller.Arguments.txt file in the SharePointFiles folder. This file will contain arguments, which will be used by the PrerequisiteInstaller executable.
- Each component required by the PrerequisiteInstaller will have its own argument. This argument has a name, and a location where the installer can be found. In our case, we will create a list of arguments for all required components combined with the location of that particular installer.
- To get a list of all prerequisite arguments, you can type ‘PrerequisiteInstaller /?‘. This will give you a popup with a list of the prequisites
- In the PrerequisiteInstaller.Arguments.txt file, add the following commands: (All in one line, with only a space between each separate argument)
- /Unattended /IDFXR2:C:\SharePointFiles\PrerequisiteInstallerFiles\Windows6.1-KB974405-x64.msu /SQLnCli:C:\SharePointFiles\PrerequisiteInstallerFiles\sqlncli.msi /ChartControl:C:\SharePointFiles\PrerequisiteInstallerFiles\MSChart.exe /Sync:C:\SharePointFiles\PrerequisiteInstallerFiles\Synchronization.msi /adomd:C:\SharePointFiles\PrerequisiteInstallerFiles\SQLSERVER2008_ASADOMD10.msi /Speech:C:\SharePointFiles\PrerequisiteInstallerFiles\SpeechPlatformRuntime.msi /SpeechLPK:C:\SharePointFiles\PrerequisiteInstallerFiles\MSSpeech_SR_en-US_TELE.msi /ReportingServices:C:\SharePointFiles\PrerequisiteInstallerFiles\rsSharePoint.msi
- Note: Because I’m on a 2008R2 machine, I use the arugment ‘IDFXR2’ instead of ‘IDFX’. Be sure to change this if you’re on a 2008 machine!
4. Run the prerequisites installer
- The only step left is to install the prerequisites.
- You can run ‘PrerequisiteInstaller.exe’ manually by double-clicking on it, or using the command line
- Because the file PrerequisiteInstaller.Arguments.txt is in the same directory, the installer will use this file for its own arguments and thus install the prerequisites in an offline mode.
- You’re done!
5. Troubleshooting
- It can be possible (like it was in my case) that the installation using PrerequisiteInstaller.exe did not complete. In my case, it was because there were some arguments missing in my arguments file.
- There are log-files available who can tell you what went wrong. You can find this log-files in folder: ‘C:\Users\{user}\AppData\Local\Temp‘
- The file is called something like ‘PrerequisiteInstaller.2012.02.15.log‘
My Prerequisites in a zip file: here
My PrerequisiteInstaller.Arguments.txt: here
Thanks for reading!
