WSS.ActSystemsltd.com

Make sure to read the section on what not to do before starting your installation and the MS hardware and software req.

Step 1) Install IIS 6.0 on Windows 2003 Server Service Pack 1, and make sure to include the ASP.net option in add \ remove Windows components under the Application Server options.

Step 2) Download the ASP.net Framework 2.0 & 3.0 and install them. Make sure to allow in IIS under web service extensions in the IIS MMC. I suggest a reboot after each version. Note: There are also updates for these installtions as well.

My Framework Issues

ASP.net 2.0

ASP.net 3.0

Step 3) Run the WSS 3.0 installer:

Specical note for Web Edition users in the license agreement: Use of the supplement on Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Web Edition is limited to front-end web serving tasks. The data storage portion of the supplement may not be installed or used on Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Web Edition.

During the install process select the advanced option for installation to select the stand alone option and then move to the data location tab and place the data files on a secondary drive. I also went to the feedback tab and chose not to offer feedback.

Click the continue button in bottom right.

Step 4) When the install is completed you will have the option to run the configuration wizard. I suggest doing so by checking the box and clicking the close button. A new window will appear and be titled Welcome SharePoint Product and Technologies. Click Next

Step 5) A grey pop up will come on screen about restarting some IIS and SharePoint services, click Yes. Then it will go through steps 1-10 and install and configure the basic set up for SharePoint. You might want to take a short nap or take lunch while waiting for this to complete.

Step 6) I now have clicked finish and a default web page has come up using the computer name and in IIS I have the following site set up. Note: each site in the IIS MMC has a unique Identifier displayed as well.

• Default Website – Stopped – Port 80
• Microsoft SharePoint Administration – Running – Port 3602
• SharePoint 80 – Running – Port 80
• SharePoint Central Administration v3 – Running – Port 15966

When the new website is displayed on the server after install it has the default Team Site template for WSS and has a light blue and white theme.

Step 7) Now before doing anything else I suggest that all items to be verified that they are in working order, do some documentation of ports and IP addresses and make all the backups needed to assure you can return to your initial state if needed at a later date.

• Make sure default Team Site is up and running
• Verify the SharePoint 3.0 Central Administration is working; shortcut can be located in Administration Tools

My Backup Process

• Turn on shadow copy on all drives that have SharePoint installed and click create now to make a new shadow copy instance.
• Open the IIS MMC and directly under the Internet Information Services title right click on the computer name and go to the “All Tasks” and then click the “Backup\Restore Configuration” and click the create button on the pop up that appears, now enter the name for the Meta Database backup file to be created and click “OK”. This backup contains all the websites settings in IIS; so you may restore them if needed.
• Enter the SharePoint Central Administration site located in Administrative Tools. Click on the Operations link and select the create a backup link.
  
  Select the top check box to back up the entire farm. Then click the continue to backup options link.
  
  Leave "Full" checked and then enter the location of where you want the backup to be created. Before clicking next; create the folder on the hard drive and give the correct permissions to write to the folder.

• My initial WSS backup attempt through the WSS central admin failed. I had to remove the backup job from the Operations page under Timer Job Definitions link. I also deleted the files that were created on the hard drive and ran the job again and all went well.
• Some pages while the backup process is completing it will not seem to be doing anything but be patient as the page and backup process will reload the page.

MS Server Backups

• Windows backups, although not known its usefulness, does make a nice way to quickly make a scheduled backup of these files that have been added by WSS as well as a System State.
• My separate file backup is run each night and composes of the data file location I set upon install of WSS and the Program Files folder where SharePoint houses a large amount of files in Common Files and the SQL Installation and .Net install in case of corruption.
• ASR backups are great if you have access to a floppy drive on your system. This creates a full backup of your server and system state and is able to recover it from a catastrophic failure by using the floppy boot disk that is created. Even if you don’t you can still grab the files that are created for the floppy and move them off the server for later use with a floppy drive on that server.
• My separate System State backup is over written each night and is 500 MB

MS SQL Individual Backups

• Use the MS SQL Management Studio Express to backup the SQL instance that was installed on the server when the WSS was installed. Use the Windows authentication and local Administrator account that you were under when installing WSS.

• The connection string is: \\.\pipe\mssql$microsoft##ssee\sql\query\
• Expand the database one at a time and select Task\Backup
• Set the backup options you want and then select the Script option at the top and select to save to file if you want to save it for a run later. You will notice that the SQL backup and the WSS backups contain some of the exact same data by looking at the file size. The reason I like to do this is in case WSS restore is not an option for restoring the data I can do it through the SQL Management Studio if needed and don’t have to mess with the WSS backups.