Installing Umbraco 7 (Part 4) - Final Installation Steps

For the first part in this series of blog posts, which details the process that I followed to manually install Umbraco CMS version 7.3.0, I documented the steps to successfully set up a new empty project in Visual Studio 2013 and how to download and install the Umbraco CMS package to your solution using NuGet package manager. In the second part, I detailed the process I followed to successfully create a new database/user in Microsoft SQL Server 2008R2 and update the applications connection string so that we can communicate with our new database. In the third part, I outlined the process to set up a new website and application pool in IIS, add a new host entry to the hosts file and to successfully configure the correct user groups and permissions so that you can install Umbraco.

For part four, which is the final part, I am going to provide the steps I followed to install Umbraco 7 with customised settings. This will include

  • Entering your details that will be associated with your Umbraco instance and will be used to login in to the CMS once installation is complete
  • Configuring your database by entering connection and authentication details for the database you want to install Umbraco on.
  • Choosing whether to install a starter website

Polite Notice: With regards to working with Umbraco, I am still very much learning the ropes myself, but I continue to research and ask questions to help enhance my existing knowledge so that I can keep applying what I believe are the best practices.

With this in mind, the information that I have made available is purely based on my experiences. Therefore, if you are reading my posts and there happens to be a better way to complete a certain process, or you feel that I have explained something wrong, please get in touch with me so that I can make the necessary updates to provide more accurate information to help others.

The primary aim of producing this series of blog posts and making them available online is to hopefully provide a helping hand to anyone who is just starting out with Umbraco and trying to get up and running quickly. Using my experiences, I know that I would have benefited from something similar when I first started out, so hopefully my posts will help someone.

Let’s Get Started!

Installing Umbraco 7 - The Final Steps

Step 39 - Open a web browser and browse to your local site (e.g. local.installingUmbracoDemo) and if everything has gone as expected you should be presented with the following Umbraco 7 Install screen. Enter you NAME, EMAIL ADDRESS and PASSWORD then select CUSTOMIZE.

Install Umbraco 7

Step 40 – In the CONFIGURE YOUR DATABASE screen enter the following details

First we need to tell the Umbraco installer which type of database we have used to set up your new empty database.

  • DATABASETYPE – I used Microsoft SQL Server 2008R2 to create my new database so here I would choose MICROSOFT SQL SERVER.

We then need to provide the Umbraco Installer with information on how it can find the new empty database

  • SERVER – This is the name or IP Address of the server where your database resides. As we have installed everything locally here I will enter the name of my local SQL Server Instance that is running on my machine. For me this is ‘MACHINENAME\SQL2008R2
  • DATABASE NAME – This value needs to be the name that you called your database in part 2 step 17. In my case this will be INSTALLINGUMBRACODEMO_DB.

Using the information above, once the Umbraco Installer has identified and located your new database you need to provide the crediatials for it to be able to access it so that it can create all the umbraco specific database tables.

  • LOGIN - This value needs to be the Login Name that you created for your database user in part 2 step 20. In my case this will be INSTALLINGUMBRACODEMO_USER.
  • PASSWORD - This value needs to be the password that you created for your database user in part 2 step 20. In my case this will be MYSECUREPASSWORD1234.

Configure your database

Step 41 –The next screen will provide you with the option to INSTALL A STARTER WEBSITE. A starter website typically contains enough resources to give you the perfect head start if you have never used Umbraco before, it will contain things like predefined document types, templates with HTML mark up, and CSS styles etc. However, as I am comfortable with creating my own site structure at this point I always choose ‘NO THANKS, I DON NOT WANT TO INSTALL A STARTER WEBSITE’, I like to have a 'super clean' installation and build my sites from the bottom up. This option is purely down to preference so please choose what is best for you.

Install a starter website

Step 42 –Once you chose your preference in the Install a starter website step the next step will consist of the Umbraco installer setting up your new database with all the Umbarco specific tables etc. Just sit back and let it do its thing :).

Setting up a database

Step 43 –Once the installer has completed setting up your database you should be presented with the Umbraco Back Office of your brand new manual install. It is at this point you are ready to start to begin developing your website.

Umbraco Back Office

 

Comments

26 July 2018 at 9:53
Henry Noble wrote...

thanks for the tutorial, incredibly helpful and straightforward!

13 July 2018 at 17:02
Paul Griffiths wrote...

Hi Jeff, Really glad my guide helped you. Good luck with your umbraco journey :) Paul

13 July 2018 at 15:54
Jeff Shimp wrote...

Paul... Like many of the others, these guides help me get my local development environment up and running. Thank You for writing such clear and concise guides.

18 January 2018 at 16:10
Amar Chauhan wrote...

Hi Paul, Im using VS2015 and its the first time i have installed Umbraco and your tutorial worked perfectly. Looking forward to anymore tutorials on customising Umbraco using MVC. thank you again

21 November 2017 at 16:01
Matt Smith wrote...

Typically where is the smtp configuration for umbraco's CMS back engine ?

09 August 2017 at 16:43
Paul Griffiths wrote...

Hi Mark, Thank you for your feedback, i'm glad that my little blog helped you in someway. I know the challenges you face when just starting out and i know i could have done with something similar. Keep in touch Thanks Paul

08 August 2017 at 11:16
Mark Mackay wrote...

This has been an invaluable tutorial for getting started. Thank you so much Paul!

03 July 2017 at 10:14
Marco Piccinato wrote...

GREAT !!! I wasted 3 days and I abandoned the installation... and you solved all my problems, now all work like a charm Really Thanks!

20 June 2017 at 5:07
Shwe Hlaing wrote...

Thanks so much for your article.. Great help!

11 January 2017 at 11:53
Lucian Ionica wrote...

Hi Paul, my installation succeeded, as I've expected. I did meet with few issues but solved them so I would like to share this with you in case you want to add them into the post. The first issue was rather my lack of experience with Visual Studio. I've downloaded the Visual Studio Express 2013 for Desktop, but this one did not have the ASP.Net web application template available when deploying Visual C# solutions. I moved around in circles trying to figure out why when in fact I should have download and install Visual Studio Express 2013 for Web. That maybe can be mentioned in the post in the pre-reqs to make it more clear for people that try this for the first time, like myself. The version that I've downloaded of VS didn't have a Build menu option for the installed Umbraco solution, but a Debug menu only. However the Build option was right inside the Debug menu (design change I suppose in Update4 of VS Express 2013 for Web) so the build and deployment went then fine. As a gotcha if you want to easily locate built in IIS entities like IUSR (or on older operating systems IWAM, and so on) I always recommend clicking the Advanced button on the Security tab instead of typing the usernames. Clicking Advance and then doing and "empty search" for every user or group object, you get a list of everything that's local on the machine so you can just pick up the user's from the list --- that's for the permission part of the guidance. Lastly, something that I've self-induced for sure: I was unable to browse the configuration webservice I've created in the IIS and the error (I am sorry I haven't took a screenshot) was reading that .NET Framework 4.0 was not installed on the machine when in fact it was. This is a standard issue when you decide to reinstall IIS. In my case I had MS SharePoint prepared on the virtual machine already, so I've uninstalled it and reused only the SQL engine from it. Because I've uninstalled SharePoint I thought it was a good idea to reinstall IIS and .NET Framework components, too. I've don that before I even started with my Umbraco deployment project. But when you do a thing like this, your IIS does not work properly with its isapi filters. It's apparently in the order you install, and since IIS and .NET Framework are now both windows components, their installation order is a bit out of your control... So anyway, to resolve that I had to re-register .NET Framework 4.0 in the IIS and after that my Umbraco was live. For other user's benefit, to re-register the .NET Framework 4.0 in IIS you need to run the command prompt (cmd.exe) as administrator and type the following line in and hit Enter: C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319\aspnet_regiis.exe -ir

08 January 2017 at 19:01
Paul Griffiths wrote...

Hi Lucian, thanks for the kind comments. Good news that my blog posts helped you out. If you think there is anything i can help with or where my guide can be improved then please let me know. Paul

06 January 2017 at 17:33
Lucian Ionica wrote...

Paul, I was looking for some time at building up an Umbraco corporate site and you guide helps me a lot. I was planning to build everything on SharePoint but now that I've read your posts I'll dump my original plan and start new with the option you've detailed so clearly here. I'm sure I'll have this running in no time! Thanks once more!

02 September 2016 at 18:04
James Wright wrote...

I followed this guide this afternoon and managed to get up and running without any problems at all! Great guide!

16 February 2016 at 15:59
Alessandro Calzavara wrote...

Great article, thank you!

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