Basic Server Installation

  • Article
Archived content. No warranty is made as to technical accuracy. Content may contain URLs that were valid when originally published, but now link to sites or pages that no longer exist.
On This Page

Installing Microsoft Project Server
Microsoft Project Server and SMTP
Installing for Microsoft Project Standard versus Microsoft Project Professional
Installing from a Network Server
Installing from a Custom CD-ROM
Installing Project Web Access ActiveX Controls on Client Computers
System Machine Configuration
Microsoft Project Server and SQL Server Analysis Services
Planning for Scalability
Creating the Microsoft Project Database
Security and User Accounts Required for Microsoft Project Server
Microsoft Project Server and COM+

Installing Microsoft Project Server

There are several tasks that must be completed before, during, or after installing Microsoft® Project Server. This overview, while not intended to cover all the possible upgrade or installation paths, provides an insight to some of the considerations and decisions that must be made before installing Microsoft Project Server.

Hardware Requirements

  • Available hard-disk space   Approximately 70 megabytes (MB) for Microsoft Project Server. For disk space requirements for additional products and components that are required for many Microsoft Project Server features, refer to the documentation for those products and components.
  • Processor   Intel Pentium 500 Megahertz (MHz) or higher (minimum Intel Pentium III 700 MHz recommended), or similar processor.
  • Memory   128 MB RAM or more (minimum 512 MB recommended).

System Requirements

Microsoft Windows® 2000 Server Service Pack 1 or later. Additionally, the following components must be installed:

  • Microsoft Internet Information Server (IIS) version 5.0 or later.
  • The Microsoft Management Console (MMC) snap-in for IIS.

Feature Requirements

In addition to the system requirements described above, many features of Microsoft Project Server require additional products and components to be installed:

  • Microsoft SQL Server™ 2000 Service Pack 1 or later, or Microsoft Desktop Engine (MSDE) 2000 or later.
  • SQL Server is required for the enterprise features of Microsoft Project Server. It must be installed before installing Microsoft Project Server.
  • MSDE is included and installed during the Microsoft Project Server installation when you use the Install Now option. MSDE is installed if it is not already on the system and SQL Server is not installed. Microsoft Data Access Components (MDAC) version 2.6 is also installed during the Microsoft Project Server installation. Installing MDAC requires a reboot on Windows 2000 computers.
  • Service packs installed for SQL Server must be the same version as those installed for SQL Server Analysis Services.
  • SQL Server Analysis Services is required for the Portfolio Analyzer feature of Microsoft Project Server.
  • The Portfolio Analyzer feature is only available in association with Microsoft Project Professional.
  • SQL Server Analysis Services is included with SQL Server.
  • Service packs installed for SQL Server Analysis Services must be the same version as those installed for SQL Server.
  • SharePoint™ Team Services from Microsoft is required for use of the documents library and issues tracking features of Microsoft Project Server.
  • SharePoint Team Services is included with Microsoft Project Server. You can install it either before or after you install Microsoft Project Server.
  • To secure project documents on the server where SharePoint Team Services is installed, that computer must use the NTFS file system.
  • Microsoft Office 2000 or later is required on computers using Microsoft Project Web Access in order to use data access pages.
  • Microsoft Office XP is required on computers using Microsoft Project Web Access to get full advantage of the Office Web Controls (for example, to create new Portfolio Analyzer views).

See Also

The Microsoft Project Server Installation Guide (Pjsvr10.chm) is included on the Microsoft Project Server Setup CD, or you may download a copy (PJSVR10.exe) from the General Reference Tools section of the resource kit toolbox.

Microsoft Project Server and SMTP

During installation, you will encounter the Enter SMTP mail server information dialog box. You will be asked to enter the name of the mail server to be used, as well as the port number. The standard port number for the SMTP mail service is 25. The From address field must be filled in with a valid e-mail address on the mail server designated in the SMTP mail server field. This account will be used to send e-mail notifications and reminders. The information entered at the time of installation can be modified and managed through the Admin page in Microsoft Project Web Access.

Installing for Microsoft Project Standard versus Microsoft Project Professional

This section explains what you should take into consideration when choosing to install Microsoft Project Professional, Microsoft Project Standard, or a mix of both with Microsoft Project Server.

When choosing the Custom Installation of Project Server option, one of the dialog boxes requires you to define whether clients are using Microsoft Project Professional 2002, Microsoft Project Standard 2002, and/or Microsoft Project 2000. Which option you select determines whether the user must authenticate to the server before publishing. There are other considerations, as well.

Your decision to select the Install Now or Custom Setup option should be determined by the client version. You should use Custom Setup if your client version is Microsoft Project Professional. You may use Install Now if your clients are Microsoft Project Standard or Microsoft Project 2000, but it is still recommended to use the Custom Setup option.

There are many security level issues that should be researched and addressed when selecting client software. See the See Also links at the end of this article for more information on security issues.

Another consideration about using Microsoft Project Professional versus Microsoft Project Standard is that Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services is relevant only to Microsoft Project Professional.

For the best results, read the Microsoft Project Server Help and the Setup information for each step.

Installing from a Network Server

Instead of installing Microsoft Project Server from the Setup CD, the administrator may wish to copy the contents to a network share, and install from there.

Although Microsoft Project Server supports many of the features of Windows Installer, it does not support Admin Installer. The recommended method of installation from a server is to create a custom command line.

See Also

For more information about installing from a server and custom installation, see the Customizing Setup resource kit article.

Create Transforms

Transforms alter the installation database, and can be used to encapsulate the various customizations of a base package required by different groups of users. For example, in organizations where the finance and staff support departments require different installations of Microsoft Project Server, its base package can be made available to everyone at one administrative installation point, with the appropriate customizations distributed to each group of users separately as transforms. Administrators can also apply multiple transforms on-the-fly during an installation to efficiently assign the most appropriate installation to different users.

One of the advantages of using transforms during deployment is that you can pre-populate the product key. Although this is not the preferred method of installation, you can create a custom transform using the Windows Installer SDK.

See Also

For more information about transforms, see the following articles in the MSDN Library:

Installing from a Custom CD-ROM

If you have administrators who do not want to install over the network, you can still create a customized version for them by modifying and distributing a custom copy of the installation on a CD.

See "Installing from a Network Server" above—this process is essentially the same, except that you create a CD with the custom settings.

The same exceptions as with Installing from a Network Server also apply here. The Custom Installation Wizard and Admin Install option are not supported.

Installing Project Web Access ActiveX Controls on Client Computers

When performing a custom installation from a network server, you can push the Microsoft Project Web Access ActiveX® controls down to client workstations. This is particularly useful if the client works in a locked-down environment where the users can't install OCX controls, or the administrator doesn't want users to have to accept certificates, and so on.

Project has several of the OCX (ActiveX) controls and DLLs packaged in two CAB files, along with an INF file that contains installation information for each CAB file.

To install these Microsoft Project ActiveX controls

  1. Copy pjclient.cab and pjintl.cab from \Program Files\Microsoft Project Server\IIS Virtual Root\Objects. Pjintl.cab is in the language ID folder (for example, 1033 if you are using the English version of Microsoft Project Server). Note that it is important to get these controls from the locations specified above as any post-installation updates to Microsoft Project Server will update these files in these locations only.

  1. Expand the CAB files. It is recommended that the expanded files be placed into the Downloaded Program Files folder. This can be done using command lines similar to

    Expand pjclient.cab -F:* C:\WINNT\Downloaded Program Files

    Expand pjcintl.cab -F:* C\WINNT\Downloaded Program Files

  1. From the command prompt, perform a change directory (cd) command so that you are located in the same folder as where the files have been expaned under, for example on the command prompt type: cd C:\WINNT\Downloaded Program Files.

  1. Next, using regsvr32, register the following files using the following syntax: regsvr32 pj10enuc.dll, for example. You can also add this script into a batch file if you need to repeat this process on multiple computers. If this installation needs to be performed across the entire organization, you may want to consider using SMS as a means of deploying the ActiveX controls.

    pj10enuc.dll

    pjres10c.dll

    pjtextconv2.dll

    pjcalendar2.ocx

    pjgrid2.ocx

    pjoffline2.ocx

    pjoutlook2.ocx

    pjsecurity2.ocx

    pjupdate2.ocx

    pjquery2.ocx

  1. Next, copy riched20.dll into the %windir%\System32 folder.
  1. Delete the temporary copies of the expanded CAB files.

CAB information:

  • Pjclient.cab contains language neutral controls; the related INF file is Pjclient2.inf
  • Pjcintl.cab contains language specific items; the related INF file is Langcabxxx10.inf (for example, xxx is "enu," for U.S. English)

Note  You will need administrative access on the machine where you'll be registering these files. The controls only need to be installed once per computer; all users of the computer will have access to these controls. This should be very simple to do via Microsoft Systems Management Server, using a batch script. See the link in the "See Also" paragraph below, for more information on installing with Systems Management Server.

System Machine Configuration

Before installing Microsoft Project Server, you need to decide on a configuration that suits your organization's needs. The most effective configuration, which can affect performance, security, ease of administration, and cost of equipment, is determined both by the expected number and types of concurrent users of Microsoft Project Server, and by how often you expect they will use specific features. For example, enterprise features such as enterprise templates and enterprise resources may require more server resources than workgroup features.

See Also

For more information about system configuration, see the Microsoft Project Server 2002 Configuration Guidelines article on TechNet.

You can also find more information in the topic "Decide on a Microsoft Project Server configuration for your organization," in Pjsvr10.chm, the Microsoft Project Server Help file.

Microsoft Project Server and SQL Server Analysis Services

There are several things you must consider when installing Microsoft Project Server to work with SQL Server Analysis Services.

  • SQL Server Analysis Services requires Microsoft Windows NT® Authentication, therefore, Microsoft Project Server must have an NT Account to use in order to connect to and use SQL Server Analysis Services. The NT account information is gathered during installation, and is utilized to set up the COM+ application that contains the OLAP Cube creation component of Microsoft Project Server. For more information on COM+, see "Microsoft Project Server and COM+," below.
  • Microsoft Project Server relies on SQL Server Analysis Services to create and maintain the OLAP Cubes that are utilized by the Portfolio Analyzer feature of Microsoft Project Web Access.
  • One of the prerequisites for Microsoft Project Server is the installation of Decision Support Objects (DSO), which can be installed from the custom option through the SQL Server Analysis Services Setup program.
  • Portfolio Analyzer and a dependency on SQL Server Analysis Services is an enterprise-only feature when Microsoft Project Server is used in conjunction with Microsoft Project Professional 2002.

See Also

For more information on SQL Server Analysis Services, see Part 6 - Analysis Services in the SQL Server 2000 Resource Kit.

Planning for Scalability

Two primary considerations when designing your installation of Microsoft Project Server are increased scalability and long-term performance. The following tips will help you plan for scalability.

  • Use SQL Server 2000 on a separate server machine, since Microsoft Project Server and Microsoft Project Professional 2002 are data-intensive applications. Utilizing SQL Server 2000 on a separate machine can maximize the data access performance of the system.
  • Use SQL Server Analysis Services on a separate server machine. Although creation of an OLAP cube takes only a few seconds, access to and utilization of a cube is a data-intensive operation.
  • Move the views generation process to a separate server machine. Views generation is a processor- and data-intensive operation that is used every time a user publishes or checks in an enterprise project.

See Also

For more information about system planning and configuration, see the Microsoft Project Server 2002 Configuration Guidelines article on TechNet.

For more information about scalability, see the Distributed Deployment resource kit article.

Creating the Microsoft Project Database

Design and linking of the database to Microsoft Project Server is a critical step in successful installation. A few considerations and tips for creation of the Microsoft Project Server database, and best practices for maximizing database performance are listed below:

  • Although it is easiest to allow the Setup program to create the database for you, that option will not be available for every organization.
  • Manual creation of the database by a DBA will be a common option for many organizations. Refer to the file CreateDB.cmd in the Support\Database folder on the Microsoft Project Server Setup CD for instructions.
  • If you manually create the database, you will need to create two SQL Server accounts with passwords in the Microsoft Project Server database; one must be in the MSProjectServerRole, and the other must be in the MSProjectRole.
  • A more advanced DBA may consider partitioning the Microsoft Project Server database across file groups.
  • A critical component of database maintenance is performing regular database backups, as well as performing regular database backup restores to validate these backups. Since the Microsoft Project Server database is the entire repository for enterprise/portfolio project management data, regular, validated backups are extremely important.

Additional resources for Microsoft Project Server and database connectivity can be found in the Microsoft Project Server Help file, Pjsvr10.chm, found on the Microsoft Project Server CD.

You may also download a copy of the Microsoft Project Server Help file (PJSVR10.exe) from the General Reference Tools section of the resource kit toolbox.

Security and User Accounts Required for Microsoft Project Server

Microsoft Project Server requires a variety of user accounts to function properly, the list below has all of those accounts in one place for easy reference.

  • Two SQL Server Accounts in the Microsoft Project Server database, one in the MSProjectServerRole and one in the MSProjectRole. These are automatically created if you allow the Setup program to create the database, but must be manually created if you create the database on your own.
  • One NT account that is in the OLAP Administrators group on the SQL Server Analysis Server. A domain level account (with a non-expiring password for ease of administration, if allowed in your organization) would be the easiest to use, otherwise, a local account on both the analysis server and on the Internet Information Services (IIS) server, with the same password, will also work.
  • One NT account that is configured to be the SharePoint™ Team Services administrator, in order to allow for creation of subwebs and the addition of users to the subwebs from Microsoft Project Web Access. A domain-level account (with a non-expiring password for ease of administration, if allowed in your organization) would be the easiest to use, otherwise, a local account on both the Analysis Server and on the IIS server, with the same password, will also work.
  • One account (either SQL or NT) that has access to the SharePoint Team Services database, in order to allow for direct, read-only queries to be run for the functionality in Microsoft Project Web Access to inform users of how many issues are currently assigned to them.

For additional information about Microsoft Project Server and security, see the topic "Overview of Microsoft Project Server security" in the Microsoft Project Server Help file. You may also download a copy of the Microsoft Project Server Help file (PJSVR10.exe) from the General Reference Tools section of the resource kit toolbox.

Microsoft Project Server and COM+

COM+ is an operating system level extension to standard COM that allows for numerous specialized security and performance settings on a standard COM object. COM+ also forces a component to run in its own process space, using DLLHOST.exe, instead of running in the same process space as the caller (which is, in many cases, IIS for Microsoft Project Server).

One of the features of COM+ is that it allows you to specify an NT account for the object to run as. This is very similar to the concept that an NT service can be set to run as a particular user. This is the only COM+ feature that Microsoft Project takes advantage of; all other COM+ features are explicitly turned off. You will need to rely on NT authorization for connection to SQL Server Analysis Services for OLAP cube creation and maintenance, and for administration of SharePoint Team Services to create subwebs and add users. Microsoft Project also allows you, optionally, to utilize NT authentication against the SharePoint Team Services database for the functionality of displaying the current number of issues assigned to the current Microsoft Project Web Access user.

When running the Microsoft Project Server Setup program, a utility named PSCOMPlus.exe is automatically called to create the proper settings for the COM+ applications that Microsoft Project Server relies on. This utility is installed in the bin\LCID (LCID is the Locale ID. For example, U.S. English is 1033) subfolder under your Microsoft Project Server folder, in case you need to run it at a later date to change the identity that the COM+ applications are running under, or to delete the COM+ applications that it created.

You may download a copy of PSCOMPlus.exe from the Microsoft Project Server Tools section of the resource kit toolbox.

See Also

For more information about COM+, see the Deploy and Synchronize COM and COM+ article on TechNet.