How to Install and Configure SharePoint 2013 Environment in Windows 8 through VHD?

Scenario:

SharePoint 2013 cannot be installed in Windows 8. So you need separate machine with Windows Server 2008 R2 or Windows Server 2012. Or you need to install the Dual Operating system in your machine. 

If you are going to install the dual  Operating system in your laptop, your warranty may be void. If you are going to use the VHD file inside the Windows 8 (open and use the SP 2013 environment within the Windows 8 environment itself using the third party VHD file handling software.), the VHD file will consume only the partial RAM of the machine, so that the performance will be very slow. For example, in the available of 8GB RAM, you might be able to allocate only 4 GB and this might not be enough to work in SharePoint 2013 development.

So what is the solution to manage the warranty, using the 100% of the RAM that is available in the machine?

You need to Download the Windows server 2012 VHD and mount it as a separate drive and then add the entry in the boot file. In future, if you do not want to continue with Windows 2012, then you can detach the VHD file from the windows 8 machine easily. 

See the below approach for detailed installation procedure.

Approach:

Before Installing and configuring the SharePoint 2013 development environment (using 90 days trial versions), the machine should meet the following requirements.

1. Hyper-v Enabled Machine

2. Windows 8

3. Minimum of 4GB RAM

4. Separate drive (ex: F:\) to copy the VHD file (for the safer side)

Checking the Hyper-V

You may have doubt that whether your machine will support the Hyper-V or not. To check this, first you need to download the “Coreinfo” command line tool which will help you to find all the required information about your machine. The tool can be downloaded from http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/cc835722.

Once the tool is downloaded, you need to run the tool in the “Administrator” privilege as mentioned below. 

As displayed in the screenshot, the “Hypervisor” should be present and the “64-bit mode” also to be supported.

Enable through Bios

If this is disabled, then you need to enable in the BIOS settings. 

If Hyper-V Turned Off

If the Hyper-V is not installed in your Windows 8 machine, then you can install by Navigating to 

Control Panel -->  Programs --> Programs and Features and select Turn Windows features on or off.

On the Windows Features dialog select Hyper-V from the list of available options and this will install the Hyper-V Management Tools and Hyper-V Platform in your Windows 8 machine.

Attach the Windows Server 2012 VHD

Once the Hyper-V is enabled, then you need to download the “Windows server 2012” VHD file from the Microsoft site and this OS is valid for 180 days.

Link to Download: 

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/hh670538.aspx

While downloading the Server OS, you need to select the VHD option. This will ask you to login with your live id.

Once downloaded the VHD file, you need to attach that VHD in the “Disk Management”.  To do this, just follow the below steps:

1. Right click on the “My Computer” and select the “Manage” option.

2. Select the drive which you want to attach the VHD file.

3. Right click on the “Disk Management” and select the “Attach VHD” option.

4. Click the “Browse” and then select the VHD file.

Once the VHD is attached, separate drive name will be allocated. In this article, we will consider it as “F:” drive. Then you need to add this information to the “Boot” configuration. To do this, you need to run the below command in “Administrator” privilege.

Command: bcdboot F:\windows (“F:\” is taken as example in this article.)

Now you are ready to boot with Dual operating system. Simple isn't it.. :)

When you are rebooting your machine, the system will ask you to select the operating system. You need to select the “Windows Server 2012” option.

During the first booting with windows server 2012, the server will ask you setup the time zone information, administrator and login user details. Fill all the details and you can able to see the “Windows 2012” environment.

    

Now you need to add the roles and features. For example, here we need to add the Web Server (IIS), Volume Activation services, Active Directory Domain services and Web browsing features.

Install SharePoint 2013:

To install the SharePoint 2013, you need to download the SharePoint 2013  software from the Microsoft website and this is 180 days trial version.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-in/evalcenter/hh973397.aspx

This will download the file called “SharePointServer_x64_en-us.img”. Just right click on the file to “Mount” the image file as a CD Drive. You can install the SharePoint Server 2013 from there.

Install Visual Studio 2012:

You can download and install the Visual Studio 2012 from http://www.microsoft.com/visualstudio/eng/downloads

When selecting the download option, instead of selecting the “Install Now” option, please select the “Download Now” option as shown below to download the files in your local machine.

This will download a file called “vs_ultimate_download.exe” to your local machine and from there you can install the Visual Studio 1012.

Install SharePoint Designer 2013:

To Install SharePoint designer 2013, you need to download the software from http://www.microsoft.com/en-in/download/details.aspx?id=35491

This will ask you whether to download the 32 bit designer or 64 bit designer. You please select the 64 bit software.

Final step

Once you have downloaded and installed all the above mentioned software then you need to configure the central admin in order to create the SP 2013 web applications.

That’s it…