SQL Server 2016 installation notes

These are some personal notes I have made on installing SQL Server 2016. I intent to update the notes when there are new releases or I have looked deeper into a detail.

Choices

I have selected these SQL Server features:

• Database Engine Services, no sub-features (FEATURE=SQLENGINE).
• Client Tools Connectivity (FEATURE=CONN).
• Client Tools Backwards Compatibility (FEATURE=BC).
• Client Tools SDK (FEATURE=SDK).
• Management Tools - Complete (FEATURE=ADV_SSMS).
• SQL Client Connectivity SDK (FEATURE=SNAC_SDK).

SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) is with RC0 not part of the general setup. This I look more into in a later section of this post.
The installation is with these products:

• Windows Server 2012 R2 virtualized on vmware Workstation 12 Pro.
• SQL Server 2016 RC1.
• Windows 10 Pro virtualized on vmware Workstation 12 Pro.

Preparations

Before installation I make some notes on what is installed. How to do this is nicely described by Marc Carter in the blog entry „Use PowerShell to Find Installed Software“.
Also I make notes on which services are running. This can be collected with the cmdlet Get-Service.

Then I check if .NET 3.5 is enabled on the computer as this is a requirement for my SQL Server installation. If .NET 3.5 is not installed I have to do so.
This I have to describe more detailed...

Storage

There are several new features on storage configuration with SQL Server 2016, like configuring multiple datafiles for tempdb on installation. To test a SQL Server installation with multiple drives I have made these drives for the Windows Server installtion:

• C-drive: System drive with Windows Server and basic application files.
• D-drive: Program drive with application files. Also the SQLAdmin folder for local DBA files.
• GPT partition.
• E-drive: Data drive with data files for user databases.
• GPT partition.
• NTFS allocation unit is set to 64 KiB (KB).
• F-drive: Transaction log drive with transaction log files for user databases and tempdb.
• GPT partition.
• NTFS allocation unit is set to 64 KiB (KB).
• G-drive: tempdb drive with data files for tempdb database.
• GPT partition.
• NTFS allocation unit is set to 64 KiB (KB).
• H-drive: Backup drive for any backup file.
• GPT partition.

The Z-drive is reserved for removable drive.

Installation

The SQL Server installation is usually done by the wizard or by command-line. This I will look into the details later.

In this case I use the default service accounts given by the SQL Server installation, but I change the SQL Server Agent Startup Type to Automatic. These issues are subjects for many great discussions, but not here and now.
SQL Server 2016 gives the possibility to enable Database Instant File Initialization on installation, but I have chosen not to. The subject is greatly described by Kimberly Tripp in the blog post „Instant Initialization – What, Why and How?“.

The default collation for the SQL Server installation is still the SQL collation „SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AS“ where the recommendation for some years has been a Windows collation. Usually I recommend the SharePoint collation „Latin1_General_CI_AS_KS_WS“ to ensure a better information integration. In this case I changed to the collation „Latin1_General_100_CI_AS_KS_WS_SC“ to get the Special Characters available.

With SQL Server 2016 it is now possible to configure tempdb on installation. This is a really great feature – that I have not used in this case.

The installation took about 44 minutes by the summary log file.

Control

Like before the installation I note what is installed and which services that are running.
Also I take a look into the summary log file.

SQL Server Management Studio

As mentioned before SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) is with RC0 removed from the general setup, and placed in "Tools\SSMS-Full-Setup.exe". When running the GUI setup, there are no selection of features.
With RC1 is SSMS removed from the installation set, but can be downloaded as described in BOL „Download SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)“. There is a item in the setup GUI called "Install SQL Server Management Tools", but it just open the webpage I just mentioned.
As SSMS is removed from the SQL Server setup, the release notes for SSMS are also removed from the general SQL Server release notes. You might like to take a quick look at the SSMS Release Notes in "SQL Server Management Studio - Release Notes".

Post-Configuration

Usually I stop and disable the SQL Server VSS Writer service as I take backup with T-SQL through the Database Engine:
Get-Service -Name SQLWriter | Set-Service -StartupType Disabled -Status Stopped

Finally I run Windows Update to get the latest patches for the new components on the computer. In this case there were a Security Update and a regular Update for Visual Studio 2010 SP1 (KB2645410 & KB2635973).