Ok, you finally have MOSS 2007 installed along with SQL Server 2005 on Windows Server - that's the easy part. So what's next? Prepare yourself for a bit of service account planning, running the Configuration Wizard, getting past the Central Administration initial deployment state and a good measure of typing and button clicking. Join me on a journey towards finding what it takes to properly configure my MOSS 2007 (with SP1) installation.

SharePoint Service Accounts

Start with a Plan for administrative and service accounts (thank you, TechNet) before building out a MOSS 2007 farm. Treat the TechNet document (and referenced material) as the gold standard for service account planning. Complexity depends on your environment (Active Directory versus no Active Directory, stand alone development server versus enterprise production grade server farm, etc. ), so be sure to give yourself time to understand your options (I'm focusing on a simple single-server farm without Active Directory for development purposes).

• Server farm-level accounts
• Shared Services Provider (SSP) accounts
• Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) search accounts
• additional application pool accounts

Here are some service accounts I threw together in preparation for my configuration:

• SPConfig
  • Used to connect to the configuration database, run the administration application pool, and run the timer service
• SPContentPool
  • Used for the site collection application pool
• SPCrawl
  • Used to crawl and index Content
• SPSearch
  • Used to perform searches
• SPSetup
  • Setup user account
• SPSharedServices
  • The account under which Shared Services run
• SPSharedServicesPool
  • Used for the Shared Services application pool

Besides adding the SPSetup user to the Administrators group, there isn't any special configuration needed (unless you're not using domain accounts - see the end of this post for additional info).

Note: While I am using local accounts for this scenario, you really should use domain accounts for these service accounts.

Running the Configuration Wizard  

Make sure you know your target SQL Server installation is before running the Configuration Wizard. In this scenario SQL Server and MOSS 2007 are on the same server.

1. Login as the SPSetup user 
2. Run the wizard at 'Programs > Microsoft Office Server > SharePoint Products and Technologies Configuration Wizard'
3. Select 'No, I want to create a new server farm' option at the 'Connect to a server farm' screen
4. The 'Specify Configuration Database Settings' screen asks for the database server and the database access account (I used SPConfig here).
5. Check off the 'Specify port number' option and provide a value on the 'Configure SharePoint Central Administration Web Application' screen.
6. Click thru until the wizard has completed.

Central Administration - Initial Deployment

The Central Administration web application appears upon completion of the SharePoint Products and Technologies Configuration Wizard. However, a plain message in bold red text states 'Server Configuration Not Complete' - welcome to the 'Initial deployment' stage. Once the tasks associated with initial deployment have been completed, you should have three core web applications. The first is the Central Administration web application itself. The second will be for Shared Services and the third is the My Sites web application.

Administrator Tasks section on the home page contains four items. It may not look like much, but give yourself plenty of time to complete these tasks. 

1. Read the Quick Start Guide - Document describes the administrative tasks needed to complete the deployment. Worth reading.
2. Add servers to farm - We can skip this task under our single server scenario
3. Assign services to servers - Start by going to Services on Server page.
   1. Start Office SharePoint Server Search (REQUIRED ON FARM)
      1. Query and Indexing - check off both boxes
      2. Contact E-mail - provide an email address
      3. Farm Search Service Account - use the SPSERVER\SPSearch account
      4. Index Server Default File Location - textbox is greyed out
      5. Indexer Performance - 'Partly reduced' option
      6. Web Front End And Crawling - 'Use all WFE computers for crawling' option
   2. Start Windows SharePoint Services Search (REQUIRED ON FARM)
      1. Service Account - use the SPSERVER\SPSearch account
      2. Content Access Account - use the SPSERVER\SPCrawl account
      3. Search Database - default values are fine
      4. Indexing Schedule - the 'Hourly between X and X minutes past the hour' default option should be fine
   3. Start Excel Calculation Services (REQUIRED ON FARM)
   4. The Document Conversions Load Balancer Service and Document Conversions Launcher Service are optional and can be started at a later time.
4. Configure server farm's shared services
   1. New Shared Services Provider screen
      1. SSP Name
         1. SSP Name - I used SharedServicesG
         2. Web Application - Create a new Web application
            1. IIS Web Site
               1. Description: SharedServices
               2. Port: 9001
            2. Security Configuration - no changes
            3. Load Balanced URL - no changes
            4. Application Pool
               1. Application pool name: SharedServices (same as the Web Site description above)
               2. Configurable: use the SPSERVER\SPSharedServicesPool account
            5. Reset Internet Information Services - use the 'Reset IIS Automatically' option
            6. Database Name and Authentication - I renamed the Database Name to WSS_Content_SharedServices
         3. SSP Administration Site URL - the generated URL is  http://spserver:9001/ssp/admin
      2. My Site Location
         1. Web Application - Create a new Web application
            1. IIS Web Site
               1. Description: My Sites
               2. Port: 9002
            2. Security Configuration - no changes
            3. Load Balanced URL - no changes
            4. Application Pool
               1. Application pool name: My Sites (same as the Web Site description above)
               2. Configurable: use the SPSERVER\SPSharedServicesPool account
            5. Reset Internet Information Services - use the 'Reset IIS Automatically' option
            6. Database Name and Authentication - I renamed the Database Name to WSS_Content_My_Sites
         2. My Site Location URL - the generated URL is http://spserver:9002/
         3. Relative URL - no changes
      3. SSP Service Credentials - use SPSERVER\SPSharedServices
      4. SSP Database - I renamed the Database Name to SharedServicesG_DB
      5. Search Database - I renamed the Database Name to SharedServicesG_Search_DB
      6. Index Server - no changes
      7. SSL for Web Services - no changes
   2. Upon completion, the Manage this Farm's Shared Services screen appears
      1. The SSP ShareServicesG is displayed
      2. The 'My Sites' and 'SharedServices (Administration site host)' web applications are also shown.

That's it - initial deployment is done. If you navigate back to the home page, you'll see a new set of tasks under the Administrator Tasks section and the red-text warning is gone.

Sanity Check

A ton of modifications to the registry, database and file system were applied to bring us to this point. I'm pretty sure I missed something - let's review which service accounts were used and where.

• SPConfig [yes - Error generated in System event log; see the update below]
• SPContentPool [no - but I will use it as soon as I create my first site collection]
• SPCrawl [yes - Services on Server section]
• SPSearch [yes - Services on Server section]
• SPSetup [yes - account used during setup]
• SPSharedServices [yes - SSP Service Credentials]
• SPSharedServicesPool [yes - SSP web applications]

Honestly, I'm amazed that my service accounts did not generate MORE errors. I applied the fix without any issues. Here is a list of services running before and after initial configuration.

Go ahead and create your first web application and finish off the administrator tasks. Our journey is now complete for now - MOSS 2007 should be ready for whatever you have for it.

Update - Fix for System Event Log Error

A quick checking the event log uncovered a service account related error. It was caused by the use of local instead of domain accounts for the service accounts mentioned earlier.

Event Type: Error
Event Source: DCOM
Event Category: None
Event ID: 10016
Date:  6/4/2008
Time:  5:57:11 PM
User:  SPSERVER\SPConfig
Computer: SPSERVER
Description:
The application-specific permission settings do not grant Local Activation permission for the COM Server application with CLSID
{61738644-F196-11D0-9953-00C04FD919C1}
 to the user SPSERVER\SPConfig SID (S-1-5-21-1902597101-334711912-2605989411-1017).  This security permission can be modified using the Component Services administrative tool.

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.

Read Katrien's post for more on fixing this.