Things you need to know before you Install SharePoint 2016 Preview

What is SharePoint 2016 Preview?

SharePoint 2016 Preview is a test or preview version that was released by Microsoft on 24th Aug 2015, for the purpose of testing upcoming SharePoint 2016 features. SharePoint users can now test Office 365 Search hybrid, Content Scalability, Performance, Migration,Minrole and a lot more features using the Preview version that can be downloaded from here Download Link. SharePoint 2016 is not a production software.

What is MinRole feature?

* With MinRole feature, SharePoint farm administrators can now define each server’s role in a farm topology.
* When you select a role, SharePoint automatically configures the services on the server based on the server’s role.

What about Standalone Farm Installations?

The Single-Server Farm role in SharePoint 2016 replaces the Standalone Install mode available in previous SharePoint Server releases. The SharePoint administrator now must separately install and prepare Microsoft SQL Server to be included as a SharePoint Single-Server Farm. See the detailed example @  Step-by-Step: Create SharePoint 2016 Single-Server Farm with Azure Virtual Machines

What are the Minimum specifications that i can use?

You can use two Servers one with Single Server role and other with SQL server which could have hardware specs like 12–16 GB RAM, 64-bit, 4 cores Processors, 80 GB for system drive + 100 GB for second drive.

For example, a Single-Server farm for testing must have :

One SharePoint server that uses the Single-Server role (Windows Server 2012 or Windows Server 2016 Technical Preview 3)

One SQL Server (The 64-bit edition of Microsoft SQL Server 2014 Service Pack 1 (SP1))
See the example @ Step-by-Step: Install SharePoint 2016 Single Server Farm on Virtual Machines

How can i Install the prerequisites?

The Microsoft SharePoint Products Preparation Tool can assist you in the installation of the software prerequisites for SharePoint Server 2016 Preview. Ensure that you have an Internet connection because some prerequisites are installed from the Internet. You might want to check the prerequisites errors here

What services do i need to provision on the a server role?

Once you provision the role, Services are provisioned as per the role you selected.
You can verify in Central admin -> Server in farm, where it now contains two new columns Role and In Compliance. The In Compliance column displays whether the server configuration is in compliance with its server role. If the server is not in compliance, a Fix link will be provided to automatically reconfigure the server to match the expected configuration of its server role.

What happened to Excel Services in SharePoint 2016?

Excel Services in SharePoint 2016 is deprecated but will still work as expected until Microsoft makes it obsolete. Its however now recommended for IT admins that they must use the Office Online Server (the on-premises version of OWA) to host Excel services and then leverage that as a part of their SharePoint 2016 farm.

Project Server 2016 is now installed with SharePoint 2016?

Project Server 2016 Preview is now a service application in SharePoint Server 2016 Preview.The SharePoint Server 2016 Preview MSI file will contain the installation files for Project Server 2016 Preview as well.The hardware, software, and browser requirements for Project Server 2016 Preview will be the ones specified for SharePoint Server 2016 Preview.

Can I later upgrade SharePoint 2016 Preview to RTM?

No, SharePoint Server 2016 IT Preview cannot be upgraded to RTM.

Why is Application role different in SharePoint 2016?

In previous releases of SharePoint, the Application server typically hosted service application endpoints. Front-end servers would call these endpoints while serving user requests. From a services perspective, the Application server and the Front-End server roles are very similar. However, each role serves a different purpose now. The Front-End roles are performance-sensitive and optimized for receiving end use traffic, They also have built-in logic to always service requests from local service instances as opposed to going across the farm to another server. For example, Managed Metadata calls will route to the managed metadata service instance on the local computer if it is available instead of service instances on other servers.

What are the Supported Browsers?

Microsoft Edge
Microsoft Internet Explorer 11
Microsoft Internet Explorer 10
Google Chrome (latest released version)
Mozilla Firefox (latest released version plus immediate previous version)
Apple Safari (latest released version)


SharePoint Server 2016 IT Preview Datasheet

SharePoint Server 2016 IT Preview Quick Start Guide

SharePoint Server 2016 Preview Documentation

Known Issues in SharePoint Server 2016 IT Preview

SharePoint Server 2016 IT Preview forum

Customer Feedback for SharePoint Server