Step By Step - Installation and Configuration
In the last installment of the "Step By Step" I mentioned what are the pre-requisites necessary for the installation of Microsoft Office SharePoint Servers 2007. I also put in the links where you can download the pre-requisites instal files. Lets say, you did install all the pre-requisites - how do you verify that they are all in order? Lets look at that before we dive into the installation.
The first place to look is IIS. We need to check if the ASP.NET 2.0 Web Server extensions are enabled. The IIS should look similar to:
This is ideal. But what if you dont see the ASP.NET2.0 Web Server extensions listed here. Then the first thing to check is whether you have .NET 2.0 installed. You can pick the installer from here
.NET Framework 2.0 redistributable for x86
.NET Framework 2.0 redistributable for x64
.NET Framework 2.0 redistributable for IA64
Once the install is done, open the command prompt and kickoff the ASP.NET registration with IIS using the aspnet_regiis utility.
Now head back into IIS and hit "Allow" on the ASP.NET 2.0.50727 Web Server Extension.
The next important important pre-req is WinWF (Windows WorkFlow Foundation). This can be checked from Add/remove Programs in the control Panel. You should see an entry like:
Installation
Alright, now that we have verified these, lets proceed with the installation. Kickoff the Office Server installer. It would ask you for the product key. On verification you would be presented a set of installation options.
The Basic installation will install in the standalone mode. What this means is that the installer would automatically install SQL Express and cofigure Office Server to use this particular SQL Express instance as its database. This by the way is also the default option.
The Advanced tab will give you more control over how the installation is done. Both Complete and Web Front End modes will provide you the ability to connect to a local or remote SQL Server installation.
The other tabs allow you to change the location of the installation and to opt-in to the Microsoft Feedback process.
After you have selected the installation mode, let it begin. During this entire process a comprehensive set of logs is maintained. These are located in the %temp% directory. Take a look: 
Once the installation is done you would see a screen similar to this:
What this basically means is that the Installer has created all the file system entries, the registry entries etc. What remains is hooking the installation with the database. This is done through a tool called the Post Setup Configuration Wizard. Just hit close here, and the Configuration Wizard would launch.
Configuration
The moment you click Next, you would be prompted that the Wizard will stop some services. Hit ok on that and proceed.
Thje wizard then ask you whether you want to connect to an existing farm or whether you wnat to create a new farm. The first option is basically useful when you are creating a small/medium/large farm with more than one SharePoint Server. So the first server would run the configuration wizard by creating a new farm and all the other servers would run the config wizard and join that farm. Since this is the first server, lets chose create a new farm. Now the wizard will ask details regarding the SQL Server.
Enter the Server name, the domain account that has sysAdmin, DBO access to the SQL Server and hit next. What happens now, is that the wizard will try and establish a connection. If succesful, it would proceed else, you would get a nice error pop-up. Next step:
here you can chose, the port for the Central Administration web site, as well as the Authentication mechanism between NTLM and kerberos. The default is NTLM. make the selections nad hit next. You would be presented with a summary of all the choices you have made so far
Hit Next here, and the configuration will start. During this entire process, again comprehensive logs are maintained and are called the PSConfig logs - short for Post setup config logs. These are located at [drive]:\program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\12\Logs folder. All of these logs are identified by the filename that is in the format PSCDiagnostics_timestamp.log. Once the configuration is done, the Central Administration web site is created for you and you would see a screen as below:
With all this, there are chances that your environment may have some environmental influences that might cause the installation to fail. depending on what stage it fails the places to look are different. If the failure is during the installation phase, then check the logs in the %temp% directory and send them over to me or to anybody from Microsoft PSS to help you figure out what went wrong. If the failure is during Configuration, then the PSCDiagnostics are the logs you need to send over.
All the best with the installations!
-Harsh