Scripters Inc

I recently installed Sharepoint Server 2013 on Server 2012 R2 and hit a snag.

The Prerequisiteinstaller.exe was throwing the error:

“The tool was unable to install Application Server Role, Web Server (IIS) Role” and ” Application Server Role, Web Server (IIS) Role: Configuration Error”.

I then installed the following roles & features manually:

Roles:

• Application Server
• Web Server (IIS)

Features:

• ASP.NET 4.5
• Windows Identity Foundation 3.5
• .NET 3.5

Then I downloaded the following files :

• SQL Server 2008 R2 SP1 Native Client
• Microsoft WCF Data Services 5.0
• Microsoft Information Protection and Control Client (MSIPC)
• Microsoft Sync Framework Runtime v1.0 SP1 (x64)
• Windows Identity Extensions
• Windows Identity Foundation (KB974405) (you can Install it as a feature)
• Windows Server AppFabric
• Cumulative Update Package 1 for Microsoft AppFabric 1.1 for Windows Server (KB 2671763).

After all the prerequisites had been installed , I tried to run the SharePoint 2013 Installation. but unfortunately I got the following error:

Windows Server AppFabric is not correctly configured. You should uninstall Windows Server Appfabric and reinstall it using The SharePoint Products Preparation Tool.

Google searching, I  found this page:

Why Installation of SharePoint 2013 Prerequisites fails with error “The tool was unable to install Application Server Role, Web Server (IIS) Role” and ” Application Server Role, Web Server (IIS) Role: Configuration Error”.

And this: https://support.microsoft.com/en-ca/kb/2765260

I ran the powershell scripts but still got the AppFabric error.

I tried uninstalling it, removing the path from the PSModulePath environment variable, and reinstalling. Nada.

Checked to see if the Windows Update Service was turned on. It wasn’t so tried again with the uninstall/reinstall. Nada.

Finally, I found the solution. The problem is that AppFabric cannot be installed by double clicking on its exe file. You have to install it using Powershell, probably because that’s the way the Prerequisite checker installs and detects it.

1. Move WindowsServerAppFabricSetup_x64.exe to drive C:/
2. Type the following command line in PowerShell:

.\WindowsServerAppFabricSetup_x64.exe /i CacheClient,CachingService,CacheAdmin /gac

• If you get any errors running the previous command try the following without the cache parameters:

.\WindowsServerAppFabricSetup_x64.exe /i /gac

• Wait until the AppFabric installation finishes.

1. Download and run AppFabric1.1-RTM-KB2671763-x64-ENU.exe to install the AppFabric patch.
2. Reboot the server. Run the Prerequisite Checker again and the error message should be gone.

This finally fixed the issue and I was able to run the SharePoint setup.exe and enter the product code. I understand now why more businesses are switching to SharePoint Online in Office 365.