Friday, April 28, 2017

SharePoint 2013 Office Web Apps Server is Incompatible with Server 2016


As of the time of this writing Office Online Server for SharePoint 2016 is also incompatible with Windows Server 2016



During on-prem setup, while running either PowerShell commands: 
  • Add-WindowsFeature or 
  • New-OfficeWebAppsFarm 

Office Web Apps Sever for SharePoint 2013 ( or Office Online Server for SharePoint 2016 ) on a Windows Server 2016 box will produce the following error:  
The operation failed. The server did not meet the following prerequisites: - The "Ink and Handwriting Services" Windows Server Feature must be installed and enabled.

But wait, a feature by that name is no where to be found...

In this Microsoft online forum Ned Pyle ( Windows Server Principal Program Manager ) states: 
“Ink and Handwriting Services is now a default part of the operating system and no longer requires a separate package which would explain why you would not find the feature listed but you do see the files in the Program Files path.”

In this other forum a Microsoft Employee further states: 
“The feature [Ink and Handwriting Services] is no longer an optional component, and is installed by default.  This change broke the check in Office Online and it is incorrectly failing.  This is a known issue and a fix is being worked on” [emphasis added]

While the latter forum states “a fix is being worked on” its referencing SharePoint 2016 Office Online Server, not the 2013 version of Office Web Apps.

(Side note: the net result is that neither SP 2016 nor SP 2013 can run on Server 2016 because of an install check for a sub-feature that nobody uses – confusing, I know)

I’ve reached out to other resources to see if any remedy has been made, nothing so far.  I doubt SPOWA 2013 will ever be supported on Server 2016, and since there is no way around “feature-check” I have chosen to soldier-on in a Server 2012R2 environment.
-SharePoint Combatant