How to install SharePoint 2013 on Windows Server 2012 R2

[Update 26.02.2014] Many thanks to everybody commented on this post. As Falk already mentioned in the comments, a Service Pack for SharePoint 2013 has been recently released. This release makes this article obsolete, as any compatibility issues seems to be resolved. Please install SP 2013 SP1 on Server 2012 R2.

If you are reading this post, most probably you have difficulties to install SharePoint 2013 on Windows Server 2012 R2. According to the official Microsoft Statement, this is not supported until release of Service Pack 1 for SP2013. However, if you don’t want to wait and also already love advantages of R2, within this post I will share my successful experience installing SP2013 on Windows Server 2012 R2.

1. Login to your R2 server as Administrator. You can as well perform this step under the Farm Administrator account, which should be also local administrator on the server. Start Power Shell as Administrator and execute following statements:

Import-Module ServerManager

Add-WindowsFeature NET-WCF-HTTP-Activation45,NET-WCF-TCP-Activation45,NET-WCF-Pipe-Activation45 -Source D:\Sources\sxs

Add-WindowsFeature Net-Framework-Features,Web-Server,Web-WebServer,Web-Common-Http,Web-Static-Content,Web-Default-Doc,Web-Dir-Browsing,Web-Http-Errors,Web-App-Dev,Web-Asp-Net,Web-Net-Ext,Web-ISAPI-Ext,Web-ISAPI-Filter,Web-Health,Web-Http-Logging,Web-Log-Libraries,Web-Request-Monitor,Web-Http-Tracing,Web-Security,Web-Basic-Auth,Web-Windows-Auth,Web-Filtering,Web-Digest-Auth,Web-Performance,Web-Stat-Compression,Web-Dyn-Compression,Web-Mgmt-Tools,Web-Mgmt-Console,Web-Mgmt-Compat,Web-Metabase,Application-Server,AS-Web-Support,AS-TCP-Port-Sharing,AS-WAS-Support, AS-HTTP-Activation,AS-TCP-Activation,AS-Named-Pipes,AS-Net-Framework,WAS,WAS-Process-Model,WAS-NET-Environment,WAS-Config-APIs,Web-Lgcy-Scripting,Windows-Identity-Foundation,Server-Media-Foundation,Xps-Viewer -Source D:\Sources\sxs

Note: D:\ is your Windows installation media.

2. Download all prerequisites from the Internet and save it on local disk of the server, e.g. C:\SP2013Prereq:

SQL Server 2008 R2 SP1 Native Client
Microsoft WCF Data Services 5.0
Microsoft Information Protection and Control Client (MSIPC)
Microsoft Sync Framework Runtime v1.0 SP1 (x64)
Windows Identity Extensions
Windows Identity Foundation (KB974405)
Windows Server AppFabric
CU 1 for AppFabric 1.1 (KB2671763)

3. Install all prerequisites directly from the prerequisites folder in the download sequence,EXCEPT the last two (AppFabric and CU 1 for AppFabric).

4. AppFabric requires special configuration, therefore installing it usual way is not be enough for SharePoint. Install it using following statement from command line:

WindowsServerAppFabricSetup_x64.exe /i CacheClient","CachingService","CacheAdmin /gac

Note: The syntax with quotas is correct, it separates commas, not the components.

5. Install AppFabric1.1-RTM-KB2671763-x64-ENU

6. Restart your server

Congratulations! Now you will be able to start SharePoint 2013 installer directly and to continue with SharePoint 2013 installation and configuration.