Skip Ribbon Commands
Skip to main content

Quick Launch

Todd Klindt's home page > Todd Klindt's Office 365 Admin Blog > Posts > SharePoint 2013 doesn’t support Windows Server Core Installation
December 03
SharePoint 2013 doesn’t support Windows Server Core Installation

Last week I was talking to Bill Baer, (blog | Twitter) my BFF and Senior Technical Product Manager for SharePoint at Microsoft. We were chatting about fun things like muscle cars, schnitzel, and how awesome Iowa is. I’d recently been asked by a couple of customers if SharePoint 2013 supported being installed on a Server Core installation of Windows. For those of you that haven’t played with this yet, it’s a minimal installation of Windows Server. The idea is that the fewer things you have running on Windows the fewer resources it will take, the less you’ll have to patch, and the fewer places the bad guys will have to attack your server. Everybody wins except the bad guys.

And SharePoint.

The SharePoint 2013 Hardware and Software Requirements document doesn’t explicitly spell out if SharePoint will work with a Server Core installation. Bill broke the bad news to me gently, SharePoint 2013 doesn’t support this. It doesn’t support being installed on Server Core and it doesn’t support running on Server Core after installation. SharePoint needs the whole Windows Enchilada.

Don’t be mad at Bill. He’s normally a very nice guy.

tk

ShortURL: http://www.toddklindt.com/NoServerCoreForSharePoint

Comments

Re: SharePoint 2013 doesn’t support Windows Server Core Installation

What I look like when I try to administer a server that has Windows Core ...

http://dbareactions.tumblr.com/post/68792303426/when-i-try-to-administer-a-server-that-has-windows

-@spjeff
 on 12/3/2013 6:59 PM

App server role the reason for no core install?

Hey Todd,

I was reading the requirements, but I wanted to make sure, but isn't the reason this wont work is because you cant have the app server role activated under server core and this is what SharePoint needs as a requirement?
Cant remember if that was one of the reasons, but I thought I would ask.

Thanks!
BJ
 on 12/4/2013 7:47 AM

Two Components of Core

Very interesting. I seem to have come across that before too. I wonder if SharePoint requires both Server-Gui-Mgmt and Server-Gui-Shell to be enabled or if you can get by with one or the other.
 on 12/4/2013 10:52 AM

Install on Windows 8 instead

Hi,

Don't worry now you can install on Windows 8
http://www.disruptivei.com/Blogg/Inl%C3%A4gg/6/Install-SharePoint-2013-on-Windows-7-8-8-1

You decide if it's a good fit for you :-)

Thanks,
Jonas
 on 8/15/2014 7:53 AM

SQL backend

SQL Server is supported on Server Core. Any idea if this holds true when it is the backend for a SharePoint farm?
 on 6/10/2015 1:33 PM

Add Comment

Items on this list require content approval. Your submission will not appear in public views until approved by someone with proper rights. More information on content approval.

Title


Body *


Today's date *

Select a date from the calendar.
Please enter today's date so I know you are a real person

Twitter


Want a message when I reply to your comment? Put your Twitter handle here.

Attachments

 

 SysKit