Last week during the BUILD conference a developer preview of Both Windows 8 and Windows Server 8 was released. Once released I’ve decided to give it a go and install and perform a basic configuration (without BAM / EDI) of BizTalk Server 2010 on Windows 8 (note: not Windows Server 8).

 

Below a list of issues I encountered and how to resolve these issues.

 

Prerequisites Obtain the Windows 8 developer preview build Obtain Microsoft BizTalk Server 2010 Ensure that you have a dedicated server available with SQL Server 2008R2. Hook up your Windows 8 to machine to your Active Directory (this way you can use your AD BizTalk service accounts etc.)

Environment

 

image Encountered Issues while installing Well to be perfectly honest the only issue I encountered during installation of BizTalk Server 2010 was the fact that I got about 10+ windows update screens which all prompted me to go and install the .Net Framework 3.5.1 Features; well I closed all the windows except for one and let windows update continue.

 

 

Note: For the BizTalk pre-requisites I simple pointed to the cab file , which I already downloaded previously.

 

Encountered Issues while configuring Configuring BizTalk Server 2010 was a bit more of a challenge although everything up to ‘Configuring the BizTalk Server Runtime’ went off without any problems.

 

However once it was time to configure the runtime it gave me a an exception informing me that the server could not communicate with the SSO and that it might have to do with the Distributed Transaction Coordinator; Well this was not the issue, as I had configured it on both servers (on the SQL Server box and on the BizTalk Box).

 

So next stop was looking into the windows services and then especially the Enterprise Single Sign On Service; well the service was up and running.  So I stopped and started it and tried to configure the BizTalk Server Runtime once again; however I still got the same error.

 

Next stop going back to the windows services and this time

I tried an elevated account on the Enterprise Single Sign On Service; but hey you guessed it; still got the same error.

 

So; not giving up I went back to the Enterprise Single Sign On service and put everything back to it’s original state (that is use the dedicated sso service account). Well once I tried to start the service again it suddenly gave me an error indicating that there were some RPC issues… Hmmm, so I went and had a look at that particular service and noticed that it was up and running. Restarting it did not throw any other exceptions and that’s when I noticed that the service ‘RpcLocator Service’ was not running. Bingo! Enabling this service resolved the SSO issue and I was able to further configure BizTalk Server 2010.

 

Conclusion BizTalk 2010 can be installed and configured on the Windows 8 Developer Preview Release; however before installing and configuring ensure that

You’ve configured the Distributed Transaction Coordinator on both the SQL Server Box as well as the Windows 8 Box Ensure that the ‘RpcLocator Service’ is up and running.

Please note: So far I’ve only installed and configured BizTalk 2010 on Windows 8. I’ve not actually played around with sample applications etc.

 

Screenshots:

 

BizTalk Administrator ‘Pinned’ to Metro

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BizTalk Server Configuration

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BizTalk Administrator Console

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Cheers

 

René