PSConfig.exe v. The Configuration Wizard
In certain circles, you’ll hear them say “There’s no option to running the Configuration Wizard after you install the SharePoint Binaries.
In another, in particular, the blog of our new friend, Alpesh, you’ll hear that PSConfig.exe can replace the Configuration Wizard.
So I’ve installed WSS and I have two new menu options under Administrative Tool, SharePoint Central Adminsitration and the SharePoint Configuration Wizard. When I try the Central Adminstration link, I’m told I need to run the wizard. So our question is, can we replace the configuration wizard with a suitable set of PSConfig.exe commands.
First, Let’s take a look at what the wizard does.
- It warns you that we’ll be restarting some services including IIS.
- Select between an existing farm or a new farm. Let’s presume at this point that we’ll be creating a new farm. If we need to work an install script for additional server, we’ll look at it after.
- Configuration DB Settings – You add the server name, database name, username and password. This is your “DBAccess Acount” and will be the App Pool identity for the Central Administration web site.
- Central Admin Configuration – This step inludes your opportunity to select a port number for your CA web site (I always select 63999) and your selection of NTLM or Kerberos.
That’s if the the Configuration Wizard until you click Advanced Settings. Here you’ll get to select Active Directory Account Configuration mode where you can specify the domain and organizational unit where the new users will get created. Let’s call this a complication we can look at later.
So that’s it.
Now if you look at the PSConfig.exe reference on TechNet you’ll see we can get all this into it’s commands but first, let’s agree on some sample values for the required inputs.
- Our domain is called OurDomain.
- Our DB server is called OurDBServer.
- Our Configuration DB name will be SharePoint_Config, the Wizard’s default.
- Our DB Access account is called OurDomain\SPDBAccess and its password is SPDBAPassword.
- Our farm administrator account is called OurDomain\SPFarmAdmin and his password is SPFAPassword.
- Our CA port number is going to be 63999 and we’ll use Kerberos authentication.
And let’s review the PCConfig.exe syntax: PSConfig.exe -cmd <command> [<parameters>]
Now, I’m not trying to rewrite the reference but let’s see if we can get our farm built.
Our first venture into PSConfig activity will be to use the ConfigDB command to create the configuration database. Let’s try:
PSConfig.exe -cmd configdb -create -server OurDBServer -database SharePoint_Config -dbuser OurDomain\SPDBAccess -dbpassword SPDBAPassword -user SPFarmAdmin -password SPFAPassword -admincontentdatabase SPAdminContent
So, I try this and I get this error:
You do not have the appropriate permissions to use the SharePoint Products and Technologies Configuration Wizard. This application requires Administrator privileges.
I’m logged in to the server as SPFarmAdmin and, sure enough, I’m already a local box admin. The problem seems to be Windows 2008 and its stinginess with permissions. When you start a command prompt in Server 2008, it does not automatically provide that session with administrator privileges; to run the configdb command, you have to right-click on the command prompt menu option and select Run as Administrator.
Also you may run into another problem burried in your database server. The SQL Server Browser service must be running if your not running a single, default database instance on your server.
Yet, still, I am not able to run the configdb command. The PSConfig.exe program creates a log called PSCDiagnostics_xxx everytime you run it and puts it in the 12Logs folder. Here, when I start to get errors, it tells me that the login for my dbuser fails:
Login failed for user ‘OurDomain\SPDBAccess
So for right now, the Configuration Wizard seems to be a requirement.
-robot
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