Installing a Lync 2013 Standard Edition Server

Run through of installing a Lync 2013 server.
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Updated to include pre-reqs for Windows 2012 R2.
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I find it interesting that people find Lync 2013 so … complex. I guess because I’ve been installing Lync, and it’s previous versions as Office Communications Server, for an age that I don’t think it’s as complex as people imagine? The processes and requirements haven’t changed massively over the years.

I will say though that Lync requires a certain attention to detail that a lot of other products do not. Some products you can install 80% correctly and it’s mostly fine - with Lync that’ll just lead to a world of frustration on the user’s part.

Anyway, I’ve produced a video showing the build of a Lync 2013 Standard Edition server. There’s loads of videos like this out there to be fair - but hey, I wanted to do one too!

Environment
The environment in the video has the following machines in it:

  • Windows 2008 R2 Domain Controller running an R2 functional level forest & domain. This server also houses a Certificate Authority for the Domain.
  • An Office Web Applications Server. You can read/see how to build one of these here.
  • A vanilla install of Windows 2012 Standard Edition.

The only changes made to the 2012 server are the addition of the Active Directory management tools, and the DNS management tools. Also, while I remember, I pre-emptively installed Silverlight. You’ll need that for the management tools. I added those so I could show those elements all from one server.

Pre-Reqs
You can install a lot of the pre-reqs (Like IIS etc.) from the command line in PowerShell (Oh how did we cope before Powershell?).

Add-WindowsFeature MSMQ-Server,MSMQ-Directory,Web-Server,Web-Static-Content,Web-Default-Doc,Web-Scripting-Tools,Web-Windows-Auth,Web-Asp-Net,Web-Log-Libraries,Web-Http-Tracing,Web-Stat-Compression,Web-Default-Doc,Web-ISAPI-Ext,Web-ISAPI-Filter,Web-Http-Errors,Web-Http-Logging,Web-Net-Ext,Web-Client-Auth,Web-Filtering,Web-Mgmt-Console,Web-Asp-Net,Web-Dyn-Compression,Web-Mgmt-Console,Windows-Identity-Foundation,rsat-adds,telnet-client,net-wcf-http-activation45,net-wcf-msmq-activation45,Server-Media-Foundation

For Server 2012, the pre-reqs are:

Install-WindowsFeature RSAT-ADDS,Web-Server,Web-Static-Content,Web-Default-Doc,Web-Http-Errors,Web-Asp-Net,Web-Net-Ext,Web-ISAPI-Ext,Web-ISAPI-Filter,Web-Http-Logging,Web-Log-Libraries,Web-Request-Monitor,Web-Http-Tracing,Web-Basic-Auth,Web-Windows-Auth,Web-Client-Auth,Web-Filtering,Web-Stat-Compression,Web-Dyn-Compression,NET-WCF-HTTP-Activation45,Web-Asp-Net45,Web-Mgmt-Tools,Web-Scripting-Tools,Web-Mgmt-Compat,NET-Framework-Core,NET-HTTP-Activation,Desktop-Experience,Windows-Identity-Foundation,Telnet-Client,BITS

For Server 2012 R2, the pre-reqs are:

Install-WindowsFeature RSAT-ADDS, Web-Server, Web-Static-Content, Web-Default-Doc, Web-Http-Errors, Web-Asp-Net, Web-Net-Ext, Web-ISAPI-Ext, Web-ISAPI-Filter, Web-Http-Logging, Web-Log-Libraries, Web-Request-Monitor, Web-Http-Tracing, Web-Basic-Auth, Web-Windows-Auth, Web-Client-Auth, Web-Filtering, Web-Stat-Compression, Web-Dyn-Compression, NET-WCF-HTTP-Activation45, Web-Asp-Net45, Web-Mgmt-Tools, Web-Scripting-Tools, Web-Mgmt-Compat, Windows-Identity-Foundation, Desktop-Experience, Telnet-Client, BITS

Run the above in an elevated-permissions PowerShell and it’ll install all of the stuff for you. Can’t ask for more than that can you?

Summary
Video will show you how to get up and running with a single Lync 2013 Standard Edition server, and how to configure a couple of test users. You may run in to a certificate issue about your domain being untrusted - something like ‘Cannot verify that the server is trusted’. It’s not really an ‘issue’ as such, it’s more of a security function to warn you Lync doesn’t know the server. You can add the fully qualified name of the server to the trusted list by using policies or registry editing. The Microsoft knowledge base article is here for example:

“Lync cannot verify that the server is trusted for your sign-in address.” message when you sign in to Lync 2010 by authenticating to Lync Online

There’s a g
ood description of it here, too. Personally, I prefer to deal with it by policy. The articles below go someway to describing that:

Lync cannot verify that the server is trusted for your sign-in address

Client Policies and Settings

Anyways, the video run through is below. Click here to see the hi-def version natively on YouTube.


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