Failed to Register SharePoint Services in PSConfig

Unfortunately this happens on Stand Alone servers more often than you would think. Good news is that there is a really quick way to fix this.

Open up Regedit and browse to:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office Server\15\LauncherSettings 

Create the following key:

Type: DWORD

Name: AcknowledgedRunningOnAppServer 
Value: 1

Then do the same thin in the following registry:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office Server\15\LoadBalancerSettings

No need to restart, just rerun PSConfig and you should be good to go.

by Jeff Adkin via Everyone's Blog Posts - SharePoint Community

SharePoint Installation Encountered an Error 1603

Microsoft Bootstrapper has always been an interesting program. It is used across all of the Office products (Plus a lot more) and when it works we do not even notice it. When it fails it tends to give no end of grief.

In this case we have it failing on error 1603. The reason for this failure is actually permissions, whether on the folders or on the registry. In either case it will not exactly tell you where it occurred. So lets fix both issues.

1) Permissions on the Folders

Open "Command Prompt as Administrator.

Type in the following commands

takeown /f  C:\Windows

cacls C:\Windows /G administrators:F.

Restart the system.

Install SharePoint again.

2) Permissions in registry

Make sure you are in the Local Admin group.

Open regedit

Right-click HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE and choose Permission.

Add your installation account

Make sure you have "Full Control"

Click OK to save changes

Then do the same for:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT

Install SharePoint (No need to reboot)

Now the first question on everyone's mind is if we are admins should we not have this permission already. The answer is yes as long as you are listed in the Local Administrators group and not nested into it via another Group. This is a one layer check so make sure your account is in the group and you should not have to add your specific account to Registry permissions.

by Jeff Adkin via Everyone's Blog Posts - SharePoint Community

New-OfficeWebAppsMachine - Unable to find the specified certificate

This will be a quick post.

Issue:

When joining a new machine to Office Web Apps an error is returned "Office Web Apps was unable to find the specified certificate." The certificate is installed on the machine but the error persists.

Cause:

When joining a machine to the OWA farm it checks for the certificate to use in IIS site. In this check it does NOT look for the certificate 'Issued To', it actually looks for the friendly name.

Resolution:

Open up MMC

Add in Certificates and select Local Machine

Make sure your certificate is listed in 'Personal'

Edit the properties and give it the same friendly name as the Farm has.

Note:

To check what the current friendly name is in the farm go to a machine that is part of the farm and either a) Open MMC>Certificates and check the friendly name or b) In Powershell type in 'Get-OfficeWebAppsFarm | ft CertificateName'

by Jeff Adkin via Everyone's Blog Posts - SharePoint Community

SharePoint 2016 Preview - Going Hybrid

With SharePoint 2016 Preview being released today one of the big new items in the list (Besides MiniRole) is Hybrid functionality. I, like everyone else, just had to jump in, take a look and setup Hybrid mode.

Accessing via CA

Microsoft made sure this was right on our landing page in CA and very easy to access.

A quick click on "Configure hybrid OneDrive and Sites Feature" and you are on your way to becoming a true (Or sorta of true) hybrid.

MY Site URL

Before you begin configuring anything you will need to give it your MySite URL.

The URL is http://ift.tt/1Ei2O2B. It does not need your user name and password as it will only be using this to redirect users and will use their authentication.

Select your Audience

Good news here is that we do not have to send everyone over to OneDrive we can send an audience. However you do have to have an audience compiled in the User Profile to add one here. If you are going to go use an audience then head over to your user profile application and compile one just like you would in SharePoint 2013.

Note* - With out relying on FIM 2010 anymore SharePoint 2016 User Profile Sync is much smoother. (IE. No User Profile Sync service = No stuck on starting) More on this in another blog.

Select Hybrid Features

Now that we have our people chosen (or everyone) now all we have to do is decide which features we want to Hybrid.

We can either redirect them for their OneDrive only or we can redirect them for OneDrive and Sites.

OneDrive Only

SharePoint places the new url on the user for their My Sites which in effect creates a redirect from on premise to Office 365 OneDrive when a User clicks on their One Drive.

OneDrive and Sites

Same as above but with the Hybrid Sites feature turned on. When this is enabled SharePoint redirects the Followed Sites list to Office 365. Every time a user follows a new site that Followed information is sent up to Office 365 using the users credentials via a web call to place it in their Followed List.

Conclusion

SharePoint has under gone some changes in this version behind the scenes even if the GUI's look the exact same. These also include some great Hybrid capabilities with search as well. With redirects and syncs this does allow a user to seamlessly move back and forth between the environments and this becomes even smoother if you are using a Web Application Proxy and ADFS to do SSO.

by Jeff Adkin via Everyone's Blog Posts - SharePoint Community