As the above image shows, SharePoint Designer 2013 only works with SharePoint 2013 sites much like SharePoint Designer 2010 before it.

Now that I have SharePoint Foundation 2013 installed a member server I thought that I start looking at how well search works and in anything needs to be done to index third party documents like PDFs. What I found so far hasn’t been good news I am afraid to report.

 

Let me set the scene. I installed SharePoint Foundation 2013 on a member server and used the Complete installation method with the data residing on SQL Server 2012 Express. I used the SharePoint Configuration Wizard to set up the site using the defaults.

 

With SharePoint Foundation 2012 it turns out that search is now more like the old Search Server Express 2010. Thus, think of SharePoint Foundation 2013 as SharePoint Foundation merged with Search Server Express. You would think that is good wouldn’t you?

 

The first thing I found was that even using the SharePoint Configuration Wizard to set up farm indexing wasn’t enabled. When you go into the Search Application administration you see the following:

 

 

Local SharePoint Servers are a content source but there is no crawl enabled on these sites by default. Easy enough to enable some crawl rules. However, with that done I found that the indexing commences but remain stuck in the Starting state as shown.

 

 

And here it stayed no matter what I tried or how long I waited. When I attempt to do a search I get this every time.

 

 

My expectation is that out of the box, using a default installation that search would be enabled and would operate. I certainly not found that to be the case in my experience.

 

As I said, I have tried reinstalling and reconfiguring in a number of different ways and have still had no luck. I’m continuing to try and get to the bottom of why search on Foundation 2010 does seem to work. More updates soon.

Following on from my previous blog post about the missing ability to add the Search Service to SharePoint Foundation 2013 from the Central Administration GUI after selecting a manual configuration method, it seems that the ONLY way you can add the Search Service to SharePoint Foundation 2013 is by using the SharePoint Configuration Wizard like so (you can’t even do it with PowerShell):

 

 

Visit the SharePoint Central administration site and select Configuration Wizards from the Quick Launch Menu on the left hand side.

 

 

Press the Start the Wizard button.

 

 

Select the account you wish to use for this service. It is always better to have one already created than try and create a new one on the fly here.

 

Scroll down for more options.

 

 

If you want just the Search Service Application then uncheck everything else and press the Next button.

 

 

SharePoint will bring out the traffic cones briefly while the service is configured.

 

 

You’ll then be asked to create a Site Collection, but since one has normally be created previously during the manual creation of SharePoint Foundation 2013, press the Skip button.

 

 

You should now see in the summary page that a Search Service Application has been configured. Interestingly, you’ll note that the following additional service have also been configured (even though they were unselected!):

 

– Usage and Health Data Collection Service Application

 

If you press the Finish button and have then have a look at the Service Applications you should see:

 

 

Then if you have a look at Services on Server you’ll see:

 

 

Where you should now see that the SharePoint Server Search (at the bottom of the screen shot above) is now Started!

 

Phew, that is a lot of work if you want to configure SharePoint Foundation 2013 manually! What it tells me is that you are actually better off, if doing a Complete installation, using the SharePoint Configuration Wizard to install and configure all the Services for SharePoint Foundation 2013 (which has always sort of been against best practice).

 

The next question is how does Search work and what needs to be done to get PDF indexing working? Once I work all this out I’ll post it up here.

The recommended method of installing SharePoint is not to use the SharePoint Configuration Wizards but to do everything manually. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to be that easy any more. Here’s an example I have come across.

 

So, you have installed SharePoint Foundation 2013 using the Complete option during installation. You have elected to cancel the SharePoint Configuration Wizard and do everything manually. You have successfully created a Web Application and a Site Collection inside that application. You can see the SharePoint Foundation web site but when you look at Service Applications in SharePoint Central Administration you only see:

 

 

If you then look at Manage Services on this Server you see that the SharePoint Server Search is Stopped.

 

 

Logically, you press the Start hyperlink to be greeted by the following message.

 

 

So you press the OK button and end up back at:

 

 

Then what you’d previously do is create a new Search Application using the New button in the top left, but selecting that now only reveals:

 

 

So how the hell do you add the Search Application???

 

I reckon you may only now be able to do it via PowerShell. I’ll do some digging and report back, however it once again highlights to me how more difficult SharePoint on premise is with 2013.

Been poking around SharePoint Foundation 2013 and noticed the following reduction in site template options.

 

Here’s the site template options when you go to create a new sub site:

 

Collaboration tab

 

SharePoint 2010 Foundation

 

 

SharePoint 2013 Foundation

 

 

i.e. the following templates are no longer available:

 

– blank site

– document workspace

– group work site

 

There is no longer a meeting tab as there is in SharePoint 2010

 

 

There is now an Enterprise tab that contains:

 

 

So the following site templates are no longer available by default in SharePoint 2013 Foundation:

 

– Blank site

– Document Workspace

– Group Work Site

– Basic Meeting Workspace

– Blank Meeting Workspace

– Decision Meeting Workspace

– Social Meeting Workspace

– Multipage Meeting Workspace

 

The following have been added:

 

– Basic Search Center

 

The reason? My guess is that most people never used the site templates that have been removed and the thinking is that if people want to get them then they will probably be available via the new Office Marketplace that is part of SharePoint 2013.

 

However, the more I look at Foundation 2013 the more I am convinced that it is far more basic that Foundation 2010 was. Maybe the addition of the Office Marketplace in the 2013 products is where additions to the product will appear? I’ll be interested to see whether they do.