I am truly excited & honored to be speaking at SharePoint Saturday New York (SPSNYC) this Saturday, 26th July. Its going to be a great event with lots of SharePoint awesomeness. The list of sessions with the equally awesome speakers is available at this Url: http://www.spsevents.org/city/NYC/NYC2014/sessions. There were still a few of the about 800 seats available at the time of writing this blog so I will encourage you to register through this link if you have anything to do with SharePoint and will be in the area that weekend 🙂

The topic of my 10:30 AM session will be “Create your own SharePoint 2013 dev. VM. Live!“. As the session title mentions, I will be demonstrating how to create a SharePoint 2013 dev. VM from scratch. The steps that I will demonstrate will involve creating a Windows Server 2012 R2 VM and running a single click installation file which will first prepare the server for SharePoint installation (including AD and SQL installs and configuration) and then also install SharePoint on it. The session also encourages you to create your own VM alongside if you’d like to and there are 2 approaches that you can take to create your SharePoint environment alongside. I will list down both the options below for your convenience and the downloads and resources that you will need for each of the options:

Option 1 – Start with my pre-created Windows Server 2012 Eval VM:

Since there is limited time at the session, the first thing I will do is to fire up a pre-created Win Server 2012 R2 Eval VM that I have uploaded through my Google drive here. I will then run my script on it so you can actually see it through to completion and see an actual SharePoint 2013 farm up and running before the session ends. This is also the best option if you’d like to follow along and walk out of the session with your own VM. You will need the following to be able to create your own VM with me using this approach:

1. The following downloads:
   1. The Windows Server 2012 R2 Eval VM that I have uploaded to my google drive here. Please ensure that you download all the files and extract the zip archive. Once extracted, you will notice 8 files totaling around 16.2 GB in size. If you turn on the VM after downloading it, you will notice that it will show you a Windows Settings screen as if you just purchased a new computer. That is perfectly fine. You can safely shut down the VM at that point. I will show you how to proceed from this point on in my session. To download the VM files, you can go with either of the following options:
      1. Add the shared Google drive folder to your Google Drive through the “Add to Drive” button on the top right corner of the page and then use the Google Drive Desktop Client to sync the files to your local computer (recommended) OR
      2. Download the files directly by using the browser “Save target as…” functionality (less recommended)
   2. The accompanying scripts that we will be running, also available for download through the same link. This package contains the following:
      1. Various scripts and tools that we will be running to install & configure AD, SQL Server. This includes the following:
         1. SharePoint 2013 Service Accounts Creator: http://sp2013serviceaccount.codeplex.com/
         2. AutoSPInstaller: http://autospinstaller.codeplex.com/
         3. AutoSPSourceBuilder: https://autospsourcebuilder.codeplex.com/
         4. AutoSPInstallerGUI: http://autospinstallergui.codeplex.com/
      2. SharePoint Server Prerequisites included within the AutoSPInstaller folder
      3. Finally I have uploaded two versions of the package:
         1. The first one under the “Scripts Package with SharePoint” folder also includes the SharePoint Server 2013 slipstreamed with SP1 media included within it. The total size of the zip archive is in this folder is about 2.6 GB (remember it also contains the SharePoint installation media). Even though its large,  I will recommend downloading this package if you’d like to follow along and build your own VM.
         2. The second one under the “Scripts Package without SharePoint” folder does not contain the SharePoint Server 2013 with SP1 media. The total size of the zip archive is in this folder is 171 MB. Remember, it is smaller but if you download this package, you will need to bring your own SharePoint 2013 with SP1 media typically downloadable through your VLSC, MSDN and MPN subscriptions.
   3. SQL Server 2014 Eval ISO available here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/dn205290.aspx  OR a licensed version of the SQL ISO that you might have access to (either of SQL Server 2012 SP1 OR SQL Server 2014 will be fine – though we will be using SQL Server 2014 for the live demo)
2. Other host system requirements: In addition to the above, you will need to ensure the following for your host:
   1. You have VMWare workstation 9.0.3 or above OR VMWare Player 6.0 (free) or another virtualization tool installed on your machine. The VMWare tools will be helpful if you are planning to follow along since that’s what I will be using but please feel free to use a virtualization tool of your choice
   2. You are able to allocate at least 12 Gb of memory to the guest VM that we will be installing SharePoint on. Ideally, that would mean you have at least 20 GB RAM available on your host
   3. You have at least 50 GB of free space on the disk that will contain the VM (the downloaded VM files included)
   4. Your host should be running on Windows 7 or above (64 bit)

Option 2 – Start with a new Windows 2012 R2 VM setup from scratch:

After I start the above 1 click install of SharePoint, I will in parallel start creating a new Windows Server 2012 R2 VM from scratch and show you how to get it ready to the point where we can start running the scripts mentioned above. If the downloads mentioned as part of Option 1 seem very large for you to be able download and bring along, you can opt for this option to follow along. The only thing you will need to be aware of is that your SharePoint installation is most likely not going to finish by the end of the session. To be able to follow along, you will need to ensure that you have the following resources available to you:

1. Downloads:
   1. ISO of Win Server 2012 R2 Eval: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/dn205286.aspx
      Note that even though the software selection drop down on the download page mentions the Windows Server Datacenter edition, it really has other editions bundled into it as well. We will be able to select the edition we want to use at the time of the installation.
   2. SQL Server 2014 Eval ISOavailable here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/dn205290.aspx  OR a licensed version of SQL ISO that you might have access to (either of SQL Server 2012 SP1 OR SQL Server 2014 will be fine – though we will be using SQL Server 2014 for the live demo)
   3. Classic Shell to enable the start menu on Windows Server 2012: http://www.classicshell.net/downloads/
   4. The scripts package available through my Google drive here. This package contains the following:
      1. Various scripts and tools that we will be running to install & configure AD, SQL Server. This includes the following:
         1. SharePoint 2013 Service Accounts Creator: http://sp2013serviceaccount.codeplex.com/
         2. AutoSPInstaller: http://autospinstaller.codeplex.com/
         3. AutoSPSourceBuilder: https://autospsourcebuilder.codeplex.com/
         4. AutoSPInstallerGUI: http://autospinstallergui.codeplex.com/
      2. SharePoint Server Prerequisites included within the AutoSPInstaller folder
      3. Finally I have uploaded two versions of the package:
         1. The first one under the “Scripts Package with SharePoint” folder also includes the SharePoint Server 2013 slipstreamed with SP1 media included within it. The total size of the zip archive is in this folder is about 2.6 GB (remember it also contains the SharePoint installation media). Even though its large,  I will recommend downloading this package if you’d like to follow along and build your own VM.
         2. The second one under the “Scripts Package without SharePoint” folder does not contain the SharePoint Server 2013 with SP1 media. The total size of the zip archive is in this folder is 171 MB. Remember, it is smaller but if you download this package, you will need to bring your own SharePoint 2013 with SP1 media typically downloadable through your VLSC, MSDN and MPN subscriptions.
   5. SharePoint Server 2013 with SP1: As mentioned above, it is part of the scripts under the “Scripts Package with SharePoint” download package available through my online drive. I will use the product key for the SharePoint evaluation version but please feel free to note down your licensed product key before hand in case you’d like to use it insteadFinally, while I’ve mentioned eval editions of various software above, you are encouraged to use your own licensed version of the software if you have access to them.
2. Other host system requirements: In addition, similar to option 1, you will need to ensure the following for your host machine:
   1. You have VMWare workstation 9.0.3 or above OR VMWare Player 6.0 (free) or another virtualization tool installed on your machine. The VMWare tools will be helpful if you are planning to follow along. But please feel free to use a virtualization tool of your choice.
   2. You are able to allocate at least 12 Gb of memory to the guest VM that we will be creating. Ideally, that would mean you have at least 20 GB RAM available on your host
   3. You have at least 50 GB of free space on the disk that will contain the VM (the downloaded VM files included)
   4. Your host should be running on Windows 7 or above (64 bit)

That’s pretty much it. Please feel free to reach out to me via the comments below if I can be of further help. I will also be available after the session to answer your questions and in case you’d like help downloading the files. I’ll look forward to seeing you @SPSNYC and I hope you are as excited to be there as I am!