SharePoint Server 2016 installation step by step (Download FREE PDF Guide) - SPGuides

In this SharePoint 2016 tutorial, we will discuss the SharePoint server 2016 installation step by step in windows server 2016. And also, we will see what are the SharePoint 2016 installation requirements.

You can also check out SharePoint Server 2016 new features and deprecated features in SharePoint 2016 and browsers supported in SharePoint 2016.

Download SharePoint Server 2016

First, download SharePoint Server 2016 from this Microsoft URL.

SharePoint 2016 Product Keys

Microsoft provides 180 trial of SharePoint server for both the standard and enterprise versions. Below are the Product keys:

SharePoint Server 2016 Enterprise trial product key: NQGJR-63HC8-XCRQH-MYVCH-3J3QR
SharePoint Server 2016 Standard trial product key: RTNGH-MQRV6-M3BWQ-DB748-VH7DM

Note: You must use an Enterprise product key for SharePoint to enable Project Server 2016.

SharePoint 2016 Installation requirements

Hardware and software requirements for SharePoint Server 2016

Below are the hardware and software requirements for SharePoint Server 2016, we should follow before installing the SharePoint server 2016.

Based on your requirement there can be various installation scenarios, so make sure you should have the below guidelines for your web servers or application servers.

ScenarioDeployment typeProcessorRAMHard diskDatabase server running a single SQL instanceDevelopment64-bit, 4 cores12-16 GB80GBDatabase server running a single SQL instanceQA/Production64-bit, 4 cores16-24 GB80GBWeb server or application server in a three-tier farmDevelopment64-bit, 4 cores12-16 GB80GBWeb server or application server in a three-tier farmQA/Production64-bit, 4 cores16-24 GB80GB

Operating System Requirement:

SharePoint Server 2016 will be supported any one of the below operating system:

Windows Server 2012 R2 Standard or Datacenter
Windows Server 2016 Standard or Datacenter

.Net Framework:

Windows Server 2012 R2: SharePoint 2016 requires .NET Framework 4.5.2
Windows Server Technical Preview “Threshold”: SharePoint 16 requires .NET Framework 4.6 Preview, which comes with Windows Server Technical Preview “Threshold”.

Database Requirements:

SharePoint Server 2016 requires any one of the below sql server:

Microsoft SQL Server 2014 SP1
Microsoft SQL Server 2016 RTM
Microsoft SQL Server 2017 RTM for Windows

Prerequisites for SharePoint 2016:

Below are the prerequisites required to install SharePoint 2016. Like SharePoint 2013, SharePoint 2016 has a Prerequisite Installer (prerequisiteinstaller.exe) which will install the required components.

Application Server Role, Web Server (IIS) Role.
Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Native Client
Microsoft ODBC Driver 11 for SQL Server
Microsoft Sync Framework Runtime v1.0 SP1 (x64)
Windows Server AppFabric 1.1
Cumulative Update Package 1 for Microsoft AppFabric 1.1 for Windows Server (KB2671763)
Microsoft Identity Extensions
Microsoft Information Protection and Control Client
Microsoft WCF Data Services 5.0
Microsoft WCF Data Services 5.6
Microsoft .NET Framework 4.5.2
Update for Microsoft .NET Framework to disable RC4 in Transport Layer Security (KB2898850)
Visual C++ Redistributable Package for Visual Studio 2013

SharePoint Server 2016 installation steps

The complete process is a 3 steps process.

Install Prerequisite
Install SharePoint Server 2016
Configure SharePoint Server 2016

SharePoint 2016 prerequisites installation

Before installing SharePoint server 2016, we need to install prerequisites.

Step-1:
Extract the setup file to folder and click on prerequisiteinstaller.exe file as shown in the below figure. This will install all the required prerequisites required for SharePoint Server 2016.

sharepoint 2016 prerequisites

Step-2: After clicking the prerequisite installer, a Microsoft SharePoint 2016 product preparation Tool welcome screen is appearing which will display all the prerequisite names. Then click on next as shown in the figure.

install sharepoint 2016 prerequisites

Step-3: After clicking next, a Microsoft software license terms will come. Here select “I accept the terms of the License Agreement(s)” and click to next.

install sharepoint 2016 prerequisites offline

Then it will start the prerequisites installation.

Step-4: All the prerequisites will get installed.

sharepoint 2016 installation prerequisites

Once the installation over, you can see all the prerequsites status should be successful. You can see the Installation Complete screen like below:

installing sharepoint 2016 step by step

Note: If any one the prerequisites are fail, then resolve that before proceeding for SharePoint server 2016 installation process.

SharePoint Server 2016 Installation

Once the prerequisites installation over, we can install SharePoint server 2016.

Step-1: Now go to the folder again and click on setup.exe file.

sharepoint server 2016 installation

Step-2: Then it will ask you to give enter your product key which is 25 characters and click on to continue. You can insert the trial version keys if you want.

sharepoint server 2016 installation step by step

Step-3: Read the Microsoft Software License Terms and select the check box of “I accept the terms of this agreement” and click on continue.

sharepoint 2016 standalone installation

Step-4: In this “choose a file location”, no need to browse anything. So just go for ‘Install Now’ as below in the screenshot. If you want to change the installation location, you can change also.

sharepoint 2016 installation step by step pdf

Step-5: Then the installation will progress and in “installation progress” dialog box you can see. The installation will be running and it will take some time to complete the installation process.
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install sharepoint 2016 on windows server 2016

Configure SharePoint Server 2016

Once the installation over, we can start the SharePoint server 2016 configuration wizard.

Step-1: After installation complete, it will open the “Run Configuration Wizard” will come. To configure your server, just select the checkbox of ‘Run the SharePoint Products Configuration Wizard now’ and click to close as below screenshot.

sharepoint 2016 installation

Step-2: Then it will display the Welcome to SharePoint Products dialog box. Here it will ask to keep the Name of the databases server and database and also to keep the Username and password to access the database. Those things will required in the following screens.

sharepoint 2016 configuration step by step

Step-3: Once you click Next, it will show that the below services may be started or reset during installation.

Internet Information Services
SharePoint Administration Service
SharePoint Timer Service

Click on Yes like below:

install sharepoint 2016 on windows server 2016 step by step

Step-4: In this connect to a server farm, choose to “create a new server farm” and then click on next. If you want to connect to an existing farm, you can choose Connect to an existing server farm.

Installing SharePoint 2016

Step-5: In the “configuration database settings”, give the ‘database server’ and the ‘database name. Similarly in the “database access account”, give the ‘username’ and ‘password’ and click on next as shown in below screenshot.

how to install sharepoint server 2016

Step-6: In “Farm Security Settings”, give the passphrase and confirm the passphrase and click on next.

sharepoint 2016 requirements

Step-7: The below step is know an Min role which is a new feature in SharePoint 2016. Here we can define the role for the server. Since we are installing as a single server farm, select the ‘Single-Server Farm’ and click to next as below.

sharepoint 2016 installation requirements

Apart from this, you can choose role as:

Front-end
Application
Distributed Cache
Search
Custom

Step-8: In this web application, specify your port number (by default it is there but if you want to change then you can change it), then select the NTLM and click on next.

sharepoint 2016 windows server 2016

Step-9: In this, just click to next for applying configuration settings.

SharePoint 2016 Installation And Configuration

Step-10: In “configuring share point products”, it will finalize the share point product configuration. So it will take some time.

Install SharePoint Server 2016 on one server

Step-11: Once the Configuration over, it will display the Configuration Successful dialgo box like below, then click on Finish.

how to install sharepoint 2016

Step-12: It will show you for sign up and select the option as given below in the screenshot and click to ok.

install sharepoint 2016 on windows server 2016 offline

Step-13: Then it will open the SharePoint server 2016 central administration Welcome page like below:

SharePoint server 2016 central administration

Here you will be able to configure SharePoint farm. Just choose a managed account and then choose the Service Applications and click Next.

install sharepoint 2016 on windows server 2016

Download SharePoint 2016 Installation PDF Guide

You can also download SharePoint server 2016 installation PDF guide.

SharePoint 2016 Features

Let us check out the new features in SharePoint 2016 and also the deprecated features in SharePoint 2016.

Overall, SharePoint server 2016 has an improved user experience like app launcher, few UI changes for better user experiences and it has improved the mobile experience. And also SharePoint 2016 has a hybrid OneDrive for Business which users can use for cloud storage.

New features in SharePoint 2016

Below are a few new features in SharePoint 2016.

Large file support
No SharePoint 2016 central administration
Document Library Accessibility
Supported Special Characters in File Name
Image and Video file Preview
Open Document Format (ODF) format supported
MinRole
Durable Link
Data Loss Prevention
Zero Downtime Patching Installation
Automatic Index Management
First Site Collection Creation
SMTP Encryption
Project Server Integration
SharePoint 2016 Hybrid Feature
SharePoint Search Service application improvements

1. No SharePoint 2016 central administration in all server

When you run SharePoint Products Configuration Wizard, then SharePoint Server 2016 Central Administration is provisioned on the first server in a farm by default, it is not provisioned on additional servers in a farm by default.

2. Large File Support

In SharePoint 2013, the maximum file size was 2GB or 2047 MB. But in SharePoint 2016, Microsoft has increased the maximum file size limit to 10GB as a supported limit.

As a SharePoint administrator, you can change to beyond recommended 10GB limit from SharePoint 2016 central administration.

Open SharePoint 2016 central administration, click on “Manage web applications” which is under Application Management and then select the particular web application and then click on General settings -> General Settings. In the web application General Settings page you can change the “Maximum Upload Size” to your required number.

sharepoint 2016 new features

If you have increased this limit, as an administrator you need to do your own load and performance testing.

3. Document Library Accessibility

Document library accessibility is another new SharePoint 2016 feature. Few new features are introduced to work with SharePoint 2016 document libraries. Like:

Landmarks to a page make it easier to navigate, and there are alt text improvements for all major navigation links.
Keyboard shortcuts are provided for the following document tasks:
- Alt + N -> New
- Alt + E -> Edit
- Alt + U -> Upload
- Alt + M -> Manage
- Alt + S -> Share
- Alt + Y -> Synchronization
Focus improvements, such as keeping the focus on prior elements and focus trapping.
Announcements for upload progress.
Announcements for the file name and file types when browsing folder and file lists.
Improved callout reading.
Fixed use of color issues for views switcher.
Updates to the Help documentation.

4. Supported Special Characters in File Name

In previous versions of SharePoint, there were restrictions on file names, that included the &, ~, {, and } characters, file names that contained a GUID, file names with leading dots, and file names longer than 128 characters. These are now allowed in SharePoint server 2016. But characters such as % and # are still not allowed in file names.

5. Image and Video file Preview

In SharePoint 2016, you can see images and videos preview on mouse hover. This is another new features of SharePoint 2016.

6. Open Document Format (ODF) available for document libraries

In SharePoint 2016, the Open Document Format (ODF) enables you to create new files in a document library and save as ODF files so that users can edit the new file with a program they choose.

7. MinRole

Another very important new features of SharePoint 2016 is MinRole.

In SharePoint 2013, we need to start services manually in each server, whether it is an application server, search server you have to manually start required services. Microsoft has simplified this deployment process by introducing new topology known as MinRole.

In MinRole, instead of starting services manually on servers, Microsoft hard-coded which services run on which server.

In each server in MinRole topology farm, there will be 6 roles:

Front-End
Application
Distributed Cache
Search
Custom
Single-Server Farm

Once you choose a role, SharePoint will automatically start the services required for the server and stop those services if the Service Application no longer required in the farm.

8. Durable Link

A durable link is another useful feature in SharePoint 2016. In previous versions of SharePoint the document URLs are path-based URLs like below:

https://onlysharepoint2013.sharepoint.com/sites/bhawana/TestDocLib/TestDoc.docx

So if someone renames the document or move it to a different folder or document library then the URL will be broken and if a user clicks on the link to open the document, it will give file or document not found exception.

But in SharePoint 2016 the Durable link feature allows users to rename the document or even it allows to move the document throughout the same site collection without breaking the link URL. Whatever you do, the link will work.

The feature will be available after you install and configure Office Web Apps service. The feature works for Office documents like Word, Excel, OneNote, PowerPoint, and PDF file types.

9. Data Loss Prevention

Data Loss Prevention (DLP) has been already introduced in SharePoint Online and Microsoft brings this feature in SharePoint server 2016. By using the DLP feature, SharePoint administrators and enterprise compliance managers can find sensitive information in documents, and make sure their use respects the company’s policies.

In SharePoint server 2016, the DLP system finds, report and also it can block so that other users can not access the document from the whole SharePoint farm.

It can find over 51 sensitive information types like credit cards, Social Security Numbers, bank account numbers, passports, etc. Only site owners, users who created the document, and the last person who modified the document can be able to see the documents.

For other users it will give access errors like “Access to this item is blocked. It conflicts with a policy in your organizations.”

So Data Loss Prevention is another very useful SharePoint 2016 feature.

10. Zero Downtime Patching Installation

In previous versions of SharePoint, it takes a sufficient amount of times, even hours to install patching or cumulative updates. But in SharePoint server 2016, there will not be any downtime for cumulative updates.

11. List View Threshold

Microsoft has recommended a 5000 item threshold limit while retrieving list items from a SharePoint list. The recommendation is to make sure the list loads fast.

At a time, if you try to retrieve items more than 5000 list items, then List View Threshold issue will come. In SQL Server also whenever you will execute a query that will return more than 500 items then SQL will lock that table until the query finishes executing.

12. First Site Collection Creation

In the previous versions of SharePoint whenever you will create a site collection, SharePoint will create a blank site, and then it will activate the features which are necessary, which will take a significant amount of time. Microsoft has introduced the Fast site collection creation process, by which administrators can create site collections faster.

In the Fast Site Collection Creation process, a copy of a template would be saved in the database, and every time you create a Site Collection with that template by using Fast Site Collection Creation, SharePoint will copy the site directly in the Content Database, making the site creation a lot faster.

Fast site creation can be possible by using PowerShell only.

This is another SharePoint 2016 new features.

13. SMTP Encryption

In SharePoint 2013, the outgoing e-mail was always sent unencrypted and on port 25 which is not secure. Now in SharePoint server 2016, the outgoing email settings allow us to use TLS connection encryption.

sharepoint 2016 new features

14. Project Server Integration

In previous versions of SharePoint, the project server was coming as an add-on which needs to be installed and patched. But in SharePoint server 2016, Project Server comes simply a Service application which you needs to configure.

15. SharePoint 2016 Hybrid Feature

SharePoint server 2016 provides new hybrid features.

a- Hybrid sites:

Hybrid sites features allow your users to have an integrated experience while using SharePoint Server and SharePoint Online sites. Users can follow SharePoint Server and SharePoint Online sites, and see them consolidated in a single list. Users have a single profile in Office 365, where all of their profile information is stored.

b- Hybrid OneDrive for Business:

By using Hybrid OneDrive for Business feature, Users can sync files with Office 365 and share them with others. Users can access their files directly through Office 365 from any device.

c- Cloud hybrid search:

By using cloud hybrid search:

You index all of your crawled content, including on-premises content, to your search index in Office 365. You can set up the crawler in SharePoint Server 2016 to crawl the same content sources and use the same search connectors in Office SharePoint Server 2007, SharePoint Server 2010, and SharePoint Server 2013.

When users query your search index in Office 365, they get unified search results from both on-premises and Office 365 content.

17. SharePoint Search Service application

Now in SharePoint server 2016, Search supports indexing of up to 500 million items per Search Server application.

SharePoint 2016 deprecated features

There are also a few features that are deprecated in SharePoint 2016. Below are the features deprecated or removed in SharePoint Server 2016.

1. No SharePoint Foundation

There is no SharePoint foundation version in SharePoint server 2016. In previous versions of SharePoint, there was always a foundation version, which is a free edition of SharePoint that included most of the core functionality.

2. No Standalone Installation Mode

SharePoint Server 2016 doesn’t support the standalone install option, you have to use the MinRole feature during installation and choose one of the available install options.

3. ForeFront Identity Manager client (FIM)

Earlier versions of SharePoint used ForeFront Identity Manager client (FIM) to synchronize between Active Directory and SharePoint. SharePoint Server 2016 no longer uses FIM as the synchronization client. The default process is Active Directory Import.

4. No Excel Services in SharePoint

Excel Services and its associated business intelligence capabilities are no longer hosted on SharePoint Server. Excel Services functionality is now part of Excel Online in Office Online Server and SharePoint users can use the services from there.

5. Tags and Notes

The Tags and Notes feature is deprecated in SharePoint Server 2016. This means that users can still create new tags and notes and access any existing ones. But the recommendation from Microsoft is not to use this feature anymore.

6. No STSADM command line tool

Microsoft has deprecated Stsadm.exe tool and recommending to use PowerShell instead.

These are the SharePoint 2016 new features and SharePoint 2016 deprecated features.

SharePoint managed accounts

Let us see, what are managed accounts in SharePoint 2016 and how to register a managed account from SharePoint 2016 central administration and also we will discuss how to register a managed account using PowerShell.

What are managed accounts in SharePoint 2016?

Managed accounts are active directory accounts for SharePoint’s whose credentials are managed by SharePoint. Manage account credentials are encrypted and are associated with an active directory account.

If we try to register the account which is not the valid Active Directory User Account and not available in the managed accounts list, we would encounter the SharePoint Exception.

Before configuring and registering to manage account we must have an active user with permissions being added to groups.

We can register a management account:

From SharePoint 2016 central administration
By using PowerShell cmdlets

We can easily register managed accounts from SharePoint 2016 Central Administration.

Step-1:
Open SharePoint 2016 Central Administration and click on security.

Managed account in SharePoint 2016

Step-2:
Click on Configure managed accounts from General Security.

sharepoint 2016 managed accounts

Step-3:
To configure the managed account click on Register Managed Account. In this step we can also view registered accounts and edit those.

Step-4:
Here we pass through credentials to manage the account. This also provides facilities that account passwords can be set to automatically change on a schedule and before any scheduled Active Directory enforced password change event. And can click on ok to configure.

Registers new managed account using PowerShell

With PowerShell script, we can register a new managed account for the specified Credential or Username and Password.

Below is the script to register a new managed account in SharePoint 2016 which you can run using windows PowerShell ISE or by using visual studio code.

Add-PSSnapin "Microsoft.SharePoint.PowerShell"
$cred = Get-Credential
New-SPManagedAccount –Credential $cred

Running the above script we get a page pop-up to enter valid credentials of user and password combination.

Description:
The cmdlet Add-PSSnapin “Microsoft.SharePoint.PowerShell”

Is basically a PowerShell extension that gives you a series of commands for working with SharePoint objects.

The New-SPManagedAccount cmdlet registers a new managed account for the specified Credential or Username and Password.

–Credential Indicates the Credential object that specifies the credentials of the new managed account.

In this, we came to know how to register managed accounts using SharePoint Central Administration 2016 and by PowerShell script.

Here, we discussed, what are managed accounts in SharePoint 2016? How to register a managed account in SharePoint 2016/2013 and how to registers a new managed account using PowerShell in SharePoint 2016/2013.

How to Change SharePoint managed account password

Let us check out how to change managed account password using PowerShell in SharePoint 2013/2016 or SharePoint 2019.

Below is the PowerShell command to change managed account password in SharePoint 2013/2016/2019.

Microsoft provides Set-SPManagedAccount PowerShell cmdlets to work with manage accounts in SharePoint 2013/2016/2019 like we can set password expiration and notification settings.

$accountName  =  Get-SPManagedAccount -Identity "MYSP\Bijay"
$accPassword = ConvertTo-SecureString 'NewPassword@123#' -AsPlainText -Force
Set-SPManagedAccount -Identity $accountName -NewPassword $accPassword

Also, you can write like below:

Set-SPManagedAccount -identity MYSP\Bijay -NewPassword (Converto-Securestring "NewPassword@123#" -AsPlainText -Force) -SetNewPassword

The below PowerShell cmdlets we can use to set a random password for a managed account in SharePoint 2013/2016.

$accountName  =  Get-SPManagedAccount -Identity "MYSP\Bijay"
Set-SPManagedAccount -Identity $accountName -AutoGeneratePassword true

Read some SharePoint tutorials below:

Conclusion

Here, we checked SharePoint 2016 installation step by step and also hardware and software requirements for SharePoint server 2016. And, what are managed accounts in SharePoint and how to register a managed account in SharePoint server 2016. Also, we have checked the new features of sharepoint 2016 and sharepoint 2016 deprecated features.

I am Bijay a Microsoft MVP (8 times – My MVP Profile) in SharePoint and have more than 15 years of expertise in SharePoint Online Office 365, SharePoint subscription edition, and SharePoint 2019/2016/2013. Currently working in my own venture TSInfo Technologies a SharePoint development, consulting, and training company. I also run the popular SharePoint website EnjoySharePoint.com