Installing Lync 2013 on Windows Server 2012

I wanted to install Lync 2013 on Windows Server 2012 in a test environment to get acquainted with the product. I downloaded the Windows Server virtual disk (VHD) from the Microsoft Website, booted up the disk and added it to my testdomain.

When provisioning your virtual machine, i would like to note that you need to provide at least 3072MB to the virtual machine, otherwise the installation of the front-end server will fail with following exclussion: "81" Is not a valid value for Configuration Option 'Max Server Memmory'. I started off with the Hyper-V default, which is 1024 which make the Lync role installation fail.

The first step is to install the Lync 2013 prerequisites. Unlike Windows Server 2008R2, we do not need to import the server module and use the add-WindowsFeature CMDlet, no In Windows Server 2012 you can kickof the installation of the prerequisites by using the Install-WindowsFeature CMDlet. The major of prerequisites are installed by following line:
[Code]

install-WindowsFeature Web-Server Web-WebServer, web-Common-Http, Web-Default-Doc, Web-Dir-Browsing, Web-Http-Errors, Web-Static-Content, Web-Health, Web-Http-Logging, Web-Log-Libraries, Web-Http-Tracing, Web-Performance, Web-Stat-Compression, Web-Dyn-Compression, Web-Security, Web-Filtering, Web-Client-Auth, Web-Windows-Auth, Web-Mgmt-Tools, Web-Mgmt-Console, Web-Scripting-Tools, NET-Framework-45-Feature, NET-Framework-45-Core, NET-WCF-Services45, NET-WCF-TCP-PortSharing45, RSAT-AD-Tools, Windows-Identity-Foundation, Web-ISAPI-Ext, Web-ISAPI-Filter, Desktop-Experience, Server-Media-Foundation, web-asp-net, web-asp-net45

[/Code]
besides these prerequisites you also need to install the Web-Net-Ext (.Net extensibility 3.5), yet when you add Web-Net-Ext to the previous line you will see that the feature fails to install. This is because the sources for this feature have been stripped from Windows Server 2012. To add this feature you have to define the source in order to install it. These sources are not available on the VHD, so you will need to download the ISO itself. Once you have the iso you can find the sources under Sources\SXS\. My CD-rom drive on the server is Z, so I installed it with following line:
[Code]
Install-WindowsFeature Web-Net-Ext -Source Z:\Sources\SXS\
[/Code]


###############################################################################
# De Greyt Jurgen    #
# 15/11/2012    #
# Modified 8/11/2012            #
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#Active Directory Remote administration tools
Add-WindowsFeature RSAT-ADDS

#Identity Framework
Add-windowsFeature Windows-Identity-Foundation

#Message Queying
Add-windowsFeature MSMQ-Server, MSMQ-Directory

#IIS
Add-windowsFeature Web-Server, Web-Scripting-Tools, Web-Windows-Auth, Web-asp-net, Web-log-Libraries, web-http-tracing, web-stat-Compression, Web-Dyn-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-Net45, Web-Net-Ext45

#.Net Framework
Add-windowsFeature NET-WCF-HTTP-Activation45

#Media
Add-windowsFeature Server-Media-Foundation
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