Automating MOSS 2007 installs

Let’s build onto the process described in my last post. This time, let’s look at automating the setup of MOSS 2007. Here is a link which describes the process for “slipstreaming” the MOSS setup files with SP1; therefore, I’m going to skip that. Apparently, the Product Group has released a downloadable version also, so this might be useful for future service packs and updates.

Depending on where you want to go, if you still need to install SQL…you can bolt this process right on top of the unattended SQL installation procedure. For me, this comes in handy when re-building my farm(s) for development.

The pre-requisites for installing MOSS 2007 on Windows 2008 are to install the web server role w/ the IIS6 management components. You can do this by using servermanagercmd.exe with the –I switch + the [Web-WebServer] and [Web-Mgmt-Compat] components. For example:

servermanagercmd -i Web-WebServer

servermanagercmd -i Web-Mgmt-Compat

Assuming SQL is already provisioned and you have a slipstreamed install directory, you can proceed to setup a configuration file for setup. Be sure to install the pre-requisites, then you can proceed to use the /config [path and file name] switch to reference a Config.xml file to setup MOSS 2007. If you’ve slipstreamed your installation files with SP1, the updates will be applied during the installation. Here is the TechNet link on how to use the Config.xml for controlling installs or doing more advanced installations.

Below is a sample configuration file I use for simple farm installation, using the following syntax:

\\..\...\MOSS2007_FullSP1\x86Setup\setup.exe /config “config.xml”

- <Configuration> - <Package Id="sts"> <Setting Id="LAUNCHEDFROMSETUPSTS" Value="Yes" /> <Setting Id="REBOOT" Value="ReallySuppress" /> <Setting Id="SETUPTYPE" Value="CLEAN_INSTALL" /> </Package> - <Package Id="spswfe"> <Setting Id="SETUPCALLED" Value="1" /> <Setting Id="REBOOT" Value="ReallySuppress" /> <Setting Id="OFFICESERVERPREMIUM" Value="1" /> </Package> <DATADIR Value="C:\Data" /> <Logging Type="verbose" Path="%temp%" Template="Office Server Setup(*).log" /> <Display Level="none" CompletionNotice="Yes" SupressModal="Yes" AcceptEULA="Yes" /> <PIDKEY Value="XXXXX- XXXXX - XXXXX - XXXXX - XXXXX " /> <Setting Id="SERVERROLE" Value="APPLICATION" /> <Setting Id="USINGUIINSTALLMODE" Value="0" /> </Configuration>