Now that SharePoint 2019 is out and has been for a while I thought it wouldn’t hurt to update my series for creating a SharePoint development environment.  This series will focus on installing all the components you need for building out a multi-server\tiered environment to build your amazing solutions within.  This first post is going to focus on SharePoint 2019 as a whole.  What’s needed, what’s changed and the options you have for your environment.

If you are interested in checking out the other items in this series click on the links below:

Hardware and Software

I won’t be going to heavy into details here as there is a very in-depth listing of hardware and software requirements and recommendations here.  However, I would like to go over some high-level requirements before moving into the items deprecated from SP2019

ComponentRequired Memory/Recommended MemoryRequired Drive Space/Required Drive SpaceRequired CPU/Recommended CPUComments
SQL Server 2016/20171GB/4+GB6GB/8+GB1.4GHz/2.0GhzDoes not include data file storage
Windows Server 2016/20192GB32GB1.4GhzCan get away with 512MB of memory if Express Version
SharePoint 201912-16GB80GB Drive 1
80GB Drive 2		4 coreRequirements increase in a single server installation

 

Removed Features in SharePoint 2019

There have been some items removed from SharePoint 2019.  I am going to list and discuss a few here.  There are more, but I wanted to highlight the main ones.

  1. Sandbox Solutions
    Sandbox solutions was a feature added in SharePoint 2010.  It managed to be carried through all the way to SharePoint 2016 but has finally been removed in SharePoint 2019.  The easiest way to think of a sandbox solution was as a Site Collection solution.  It could not access data outside of its container.  What was great about a sandbox solution was if something went wrong with it (bad code or otherwise) it would not bring down the entire farm like a fully trusted solution could.  However, developing great solutions with it was difficult because you couldn’t access a lot of data outside of the environment.
  2. PowerPivot
    Also introduced in SharePoint 2010 was PowerPivot. PowerPivot is a data analysis tool that has been around for longer than SharePoint 2010 and was used for organizing and displaying data for end users.  Because Microsoft is focusing on PowerBI and its integrations with O365 (including SharePoint) PowerPivot has been removed from SharePoint in favour of that tool
  3. Silverlight rendering of Visio diagrams
    Because Silverlight is no longer developed and in fact is less than three years from end-of-life (Oct 2021) Microsoft has decided to completely remove the rendering ability of Visio diagrams with Silverlight.  This is because SP2019 will be supported well beyond Silverlight.  I wouldn’t want to support a technology just because it is contained within another newer technology either.

Deprecated Features in SharePoint 2019

Like every new release, something gets marked for removal.  SharePoint 2019 is no different.  A deprecated feature is one that is marked to be removed in a future release but is still available within the current one.  It is intended to help people prepare replacements for solutions utilizing the features that are no longer going to be available soon.  I’ll cover a few of the deprecated features here.

  1. Access Services (2010 and 2013 versions)
    Basically, an Access App was a way to build a custom database application and share it within SharePoint.  Microsoft has flagged it for removal and urge clients to make use of PowerApps and Flow as replacements
  2. Groove Sync Client
    Now that the new OneDrive sync client has been released and is being utilized in SharePoint Online, Microsoft has marked the previous version of the sync client (called Groove) as deprecated.  It is currently being supported, but won’t be for long.
  3. Infopath and SharePoint Designer
    This is still going to be a huge issue for many.  There have been a lot of customizations, forms, and workflows created using SharePoint Designer and InfoPath.  Microsoft has stated many times there will not be a new version of either of these tools (the last being 2013), but they will be supported until the tools are end of life in 2026.  While this seems like a long time, you should really start looking towards PowerApps and Flow as replacements for the solutions created with these apps.

New Features in SharePoint 2019

Now the good stuff.  As you would expect, SharePoint 2019 is going to come with “new” features.  Notice the quotes around new?  That’s because they aren’t really new.  If you are using SharePoint Online, then these features are not new to you.  They are however new to SharePoint on-prem installations.  I am going to cover a few of the important changes here.

  1. File Path Limit Increased
    For those that can’t get off a deep structure within their SharePoint environments this will be huge.  Prior to this update, SharePoint was limited to a file path length of 256 characters.  It has now been moved up to 400.  So you can now have your documents with full paragraphs as the title.  Just kidding…don’t do that.
  2. Improvements to Document\List Item Restorations
    Prior to SP2019 only site collection admins could restore documents deleted by others.  If you have edit access to the document you can restore it yourself without having to bother your friendly, neighbourhood SharePoint Support Team.
  3. Communications Sites
    Communication sites have had a huge impact on SharePoint Online.  Being able to have a site template geared especially for broadcasting important information to your users is a big deal for many companies. It is now available for SharePoint Server.
  4. Modern Experience Now Available On-Prem
    All of those nice new features that have existed for a while in SharePoint Online, like the new look and feel of the lists and libraries, sharing of documents, web parts, and even page authoring?  All of that is now available in SharePoint Server.

Next up… Preparing your SQL Server for SharePoint 2019

 

Thanks for reading!