I’m sure that at one point every person that is working with Sharepoint has cursed upon the impossibility to install SharePoint without a Domain Controler. Of course I’m not speaking of prod environment here. But on your virtual machines of any kind to try new functionality or to install new features.
Lately – today actually – I installed SharePoint 2013 on a Windows Server 2008.
One of the first step under installation is to choose if you want the standalone install or not. A good word of advice : Never choose the standalone installation as you will certainly regret it later on, and it will be too late.
The problem being that when you run the SharePoint configuration wizard you need to specify a login name and password for the installation. If the account is not a domain account the wizard will refuse to take you to the next step with an error stating that the user must be a valid domain account.
You will get an error of this kind :
Well, do not dispair because PowerShell –as always – is your friend. So just start the SharePoint 2013 management PowerShell console and use the cmdlet :
New-SPConfigurationDatabase
Specify what you otherwise would have specified in the configuration wizard but instead of a domain user you can now use a local user (with local admin rights of course), grab a coffee (two if you’re on a virtual machine like mine) .
When the setup of the configuration database is done start the configuration wizard again and remember to choose the option : Do not disconnect from this Farm.
You can now proceed with the configuration as usual.
As far as I now this also works on Windows Server 2012.
Happy SharePointing !!
The Blobfarm 
Thanks for posting this valuable workaround! It saved me the considerable trouble and delay of joining the development VM to a domain just to satisfy Microsoft’s arbitrary requirement.
Hi Dave,
you’re welcome.
Cheers
regis
Heys, I’m facing the same trouble.
Tried running the PowerShell as you had shown here.
I tried specifying my current login account as the local user account that I’m going to use;
specified the passphrase; and then clicked enter.
I get this error:
New-SPConfigurationDatabase : Requested registry access is not allowed.
At line:1 char:1
+ New-SPConfigurationDatabase
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+ CategoryInfo : InvalidData: (Microsoft.Share…urationDatabase:
SPCmdletNewSPConfigurationDatabase) [New-SPConfigurationDatabase], Securit
yException
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : Microsoft.SharePoint.PowerShell.SPCmdletNewSPCon
figurationDatabase
Anything that I might be doing wrong?
Hi, can you please check that :
1 – If the SharePoint configuration DB is already created, delete it.
2- Right-click SharePoint 2010 Management Shell
3 -Select “Run as administrator”
4 – use a local user account in the form ServerNameUserName
also I have experienced sometimes that there is a limit of 20 chars in the length of the username. But I don’t know if this is an issue for you.
Tell me if it helps.
Cheers
Régis
Heys, I’m facing the same trouble.
Tried running the PowerShell as you had shown here.
I tried specifying my current login account as the local user account that I’m going to use;
specified the passphrase; and then clicked enter.
I get this error:
New-SPConfigurationDatabase : Requested registry access is not allowed.
At line:1 char:1
+ New-SPConfigurationDatabase
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+ CategoryInfo : InvalidData: (Microsoft.Share…urationDatabase:
SPCmdletNewSPConfigurationDatabase) [New-SPConfigurationDatabase], Securit
yException
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : Microsoft.SharePoint.PowerShell.SPCmdletNewSPCon
figurationDatabase
Anything that I might be doing wrong?
Hi, can you please check that :
1 – If the SharePoint configuration DB is already created, delete it.
2- Right-click SharePoint 2010 Management Shell
3 -Select “Run as administrator”
4 – use a local user account in the form ServerNameUserName
also I have experienced sometimes that there is a limit of 20 chars in the length of the username. But I don’t know if this is an issue for you.
Tell me if it helps.
Cheers
Régis
Will this work for Sharepoint 2010?
Hi,
actually I’ve never tried but I guess it will!!
-R
Will this work for Sharepoint 2010?
Hi,
actually I’ve never tried but I guess it will!!
-R
This worked for me the second time around. I just forgot to run the mgmt. shell as admin the first time. Thanks!
Glad to hear it solved your problem.
Cheers
Régis
This worked for me the second time around. I just forgot to run the mgmt. shell as admin the first time. Thanks!
Glad to hear it solved your problem.
Cheers
Régis
Thank you for providing the details. I have after successfully installed the sharepoint 2013 as non-domain account. Please share steps; how to change the non-domain account to domain account,
Regards
Salman
Hi Salman,
Thanks for the question.
There is a very simple and straightforward way to do it. I am writing a post about it…stay tuned it will be published in the next days or so.
Cheers
Régis
Thank you for providing the details. I have after successfully installed the sharepoint 2013 as non-domain account. Please share steps; how to change the non-domain account to domain account,
Regards
Salman
Thank you so much for posting this Regis. SP has been a royal headache trying to get installed to where it’s actually usable. This has been definitely added to my bookmarks for later installs.
Hi Sean,
you’re very much welcome !
Régis
Thank you so much for posting this Regis. SP has been a royal headache trying to get installed to where it’s actually usable. This has been definitely added to my bookmarks for later installs.
Can you help me, i not to get install o sharepoint 2013, with poer shell, i do print screen i can sed for you for e-mail
Thanks a lot for your post, very usefull. I bypassed this issue already, but now, i can’t create site admins because it dosent finds anything. I want to use sharepoint with local users, not active directory. Any ideas?
Hi, this is totally possible, although not recommended. You will need to create a bunch of local users…
Thanks RegBac you saved my time. I lost couple of days work because of this. Keep up the good work
doing this way brakes SPsearch. Has anyone got a solution?
Hi, Sorry for the late reply. I am not aware of any solution to that issue. Please keep in mind that not using any domain account was never meant for any production purposes.