SCENARIO
You’re trying to install SharePoint 2016 on a Windows 2016 server and thinks just aren’t going well.
PROBLEM
To be honest I don’t know how else to explain the problem in any other way than Microsoft’s Windows Server 2016 team was in a feud over lunchboxes with the SharePoint 2016 devs because there is no other way to describe the complete incompatibility between the two!
SOLUTION
I’d say “Google it!” but that’s probably what got you here in the first place!
The first problem is the prerequisite installer that can’t configure Windows IIS role or download things. Fret not for there is plenty of help to find. When first running the prereq you’ll probably get this error: “Web Server (IIS) Role: configuration error”. To configure the IIS use this Powershell :
Add-WindowsFeature Web-Server,windows-identity-foundation,`NET-Framework-45-ASPNET,Web-Mgmt-Console,Web-Mgmt-Compat,Web-Metabase,Web-Lgcy-Mgmt-Console,Web-Lgcy-Scripting,Web-Mgmt-Tools,Web-WMI,Web-Common-HTTP,NET-HTTP-Activation,NET-Non-HTTP-Activ,NET-WCF-HTTP-Activation45 -Source 'Q:\sources\sxs'
Make sure to edit the source file to the Windows Server 2016 ISO!
The next place you should look at is this blog by the Microsoft Field Engineer Nik. Although be careful about some of his links as those are outdated and replaced with new versions, although downloading the version he’s linking will still work. He even provides a script that will run the Powershell to configure everything. Why this isn’t on the SharePoint 2016 ISO is beyond me!
But even when downloading all of that and installing it properly I was still faced with this error when trying to setup the farm: “New-SPConfigurationDatabase : One or more types failed to load. Please refer to the upgrade log for more details.“. Going through the install log I found this: “SharePoint Foundation Upgrade SPSiteWssSequence ajywy ERROR Exception: Could not load file or assembly ‘Microsoft.Data.OData, Version=5.6.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bc3856cd365e35’ or one of its dependencies. The system cannot find the file specified.“
It seems that the WCF prerequisite file when installed using the Powershell method of manually downloading and installing it! Fortunately the quick fix is to find the file “WcfDataServices.exe” in your profile directory (i.e NOT the one you downloaded!), running it and choosing “Repair”. Only then did SharePoint 2016 install properly!