How to Install SBS (Small Business Server) 2008

By | November 8, 2009

SBS 2008 is based on Windows Server 2008 OS and during the installation process it automatically configures the following applications and features:

• The Windows SBS Console
• Microsoft® Exchange Server 2007 (with RPC-over-HTTP and Outlook Web Access functionality)
• Microsoft Forefront™ Security for Exchange Server, Small Business Edition
• Windows SharePoint® Services 3.0
• Windows Live™ OneCare™ for Server
• Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) 3.0 SP1
• Integration with Microsoft Office Live Small Business services
• Remote Web Workplace

Windows SBS 2008 requires 64-bit hardware – it runs Exchange 2007, and as you know Exchange 2007 requires 64-bit hardware. However, the Premium edition of Small Business Server 2008 allows you to install a second server which can be a 32-bit or 64-bit processor architecture.

The minimum and recommended requirements for partition size are correspondingly 40GB (40960MB) / 60GB (61440MB). It is interesting to note that a clean installation of SBS 2008 takes 18.9 GB of disk space.
The minimum and recommended requirements for memory are 2GB / 4GB.
If your machine doesn’t meet the minimum requirements, the installation will stop with a blocking error – we demonstrate such situation in this screencast. If you have less than 2GB memory, you will have to add more memory. If the selected partition is less than 40GB, you will have to expand it, or start the installation again using a different partition which meets the minimum requirements.

We will dedicate separate blog about the configuration and management of the applications which come with SBS 2008 – Exchange, Sharepoint Services, Forefront security, Windows Live OneCare, WSUS, Integration with Office Live SBS, RWW, Installation/Import of Certificates, Virtualization.

Till next time…