Install prerequisite of Office Online Server (OOS) on Windows Server 2019

As usual, to understand the installation procedure we check out official document. There are procedure specific for Windows Server 2016 but not for 2019. So we have to figure it out ourselves.

When I surf on Internet I see some blogs mentioned the term “Office Online Server 2019”. There is no such thing. Microsoft only release a free product named “Office Online Server”. This product do not have version number or year number suffix. You can find this update patches here.

OOS need to be installed alone (cannot be installed on top of other application like SQL or SharePoint). After you install OOS the application will fully occupy the IIS. It will conflict with other applications if you install them in same box.

Enough of the background, here we start the installation. Let’s follow instruction for Win2016. First we install the required features by using PowerShell:

Add-WindowsFeature Web-Server,Web-Mgmt-Tools,Web-Mgmt-Console,Web-WebServer,Web-Common-Http,Web-Default-Doc,Web-Static-Content,Web-Performance,Web-Stat-Compression,Web-Dyn-Compression,Web-Security,Web-Filtering,Web-Windows-Auth,Web-App-Dev,Web-Net-Ext45,Web-Asp-Net45,Web-ISAPI-Ext,Web-ISAPI-Filter,Web-Includes,NET-Framework-Features,NET-Framework-45-Features,NET-Framework-Core,NET-Framework-45-Core,NET-HTTP-Activation,NET-Non-HTTP-Activ,NET-WCF-HTTP-Activation45,Windows-Identity-Foundation,Server-Media-Foundation

PowerShell will return error:

Add-WindowsFeature : The request to add or remove features on the specified server failed.
Installation of one or more roles, role services, or features failed. Error: 0x800f0954
At line:1 char:1
+ Add-WindowsFeature Web-Server,Web-Mgmt-Tools,Web-Mgmt-Console,Web-Web …
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+ CategoryInfo : InvalidOperation: (@{Vhd=; Credent…Name=localhost}:PSObject) [Install-WindowsFeature],
Exception
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : DISMAPI_Error__Failed_To_Enable_Updates,Microsoft.Windows.ServerManager.Commands.AddWind
owsFeatureCommand

It is because some of the features are not supported to be installed with “Add-WindowsFeature”. After several try and error, I concluded below 4 features are not supported. So you can remove these 4 items in above command line and re-run.

After that, install the missing 4 features by using GUI. On the server, start Server Manager > Add Roles and Features Wizard
Under Features tab, check “.Net Framework 3.5 Features” and other items.
Under Confirmation tab, click “Specify an alternate source path” at the bottom of screen. In the prompt up screen, type in your install media’s path. For me it is F:\sources\sxs. Click OK. Click Install. Then wait for the installation complete.

Now you’re all good. Run the OOS install media and complete the install wizard. The steps are exactly same as the official install guide.