Deploying Office Online Server 2019 on Windows Server 2016 for Skype for Business Server 2019

As some of you may know, the Office Online Server is the updated replacement for Office Web Apps Server to enable PowerPoint presentation sharing and I’ve recently had the opportunity to deploy Skype for Business Server 2019 and thought I’d write a quick post demonstrating the deployment process.

The following is the guide I used for the deployment:

Deploy Office Online Server
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/officeonlineserver/deploy-office-online-server

One of the common questions I’ve been asked in the past for the Office Web Apps server was where do you actually download it because it was once publicly available but Microsoft changed that and now requires it to be obtain from portals such as the Microsoft Volume Licensing Service Center under, where most people probably would never look, the Office Professional Plus product.

Prerequisites

With the Office Online Server installation package downloaded, begin with installing the server roles and features with the following PowerShell cmdlet:

Add-WindowsFeature Web-Server,Web-Mgmt-Tools,Web-Mgmt-Console,Web-WebServer,Web-Common-Http,Web-Default-Doc,Web-Static-Content,Web-Performance,Web-Stat-Compression,Web-Dyn-Compression,Web-Security,Web-Filtering,Web-Windows-Auth,Web-App-Dev,Web-Net-Ext45,Web-Asp-Net45,Web-ISAPI-Ext,Web-ISAPI-Filter,Web-Includes,NET-Framework-Features,NET-Framework-45-Features,NET-Framework-Core,NET-Framework-45-Core,NET-HTTP-Activation,NET-Non-HTTP-Activ,NET-WCF-HTTP-Activation45,Windows-Identity-Foundation,Server-Media-Foundation

Download the following packages and install it onto the Windows Server 2016 server:

.NET Framework 4.5.2
https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?LinkId=510096

Windows Server 2016 already has this package so attempting to install it as the deployment guide suggests will indicate it is already installed.

Visual C++ Redistributable Packages for Visual Studio 2013
https://www.microsoft.com/download/details.aspx?id=40784

Visual C++ Redistributable for Visual Studio 2015
https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?LinkId=620071

This package also appears to already exist on a Windows Server 2016 server so the installation will fail.

Microsoft.IdentityModel.Extention.dll
https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?LinkId=620072

Installing Office Online Server

Launch the Office Online Server installation by executing setup.exe:

Install the application:

Import Certificate for Office Online Server

Proceed by importing the certificate that will be used for the Office Online Server and make a note of the friendly name as you will need to reference that later:

Create Office Online Server (Office Web Apps) Farm

The command for creating the Office Online Server farm is the same as the one previously used for Office Web Apps.  Execute the following cmdlet while customizing the appropriate parameters:

New-OfficeWebAppsFarm -InternalUrl “https://oos.domain.com” -ExternalUrl “https://oos.domain.com” -CertificateName “OOS Certificate Friendly Name

Note that I prefer to use the same URL for both external and internal URLs.

You should be able to navigate to the following URL and receive a similar output once the cmdlet has successfully completed:

https://oos.domain.com/hosting/discovery

Creating and Assigning Office Web Apps Server in Skype for Business Server 2019

Launch the Skype for Business Server 2019 Topology builder, navigate to Shared Components > Office Web Apps Server then right click and select New Office Web Apps Server…:

Enter the URL into the Office Web Apps Server FQDN and the field for Office Web Apps Server discovery URL will automatically be filled:

You should see the new Office Web Apps Servers object created:

Assign the new Office Web Apps Server object to the Skype for Business server:

Proceed to publish the topology:

You should see the following event logged on the Skype for Business server’s Lync Server logs after a few minutes:

Log Name: Lync Server

Source: LS Data MCU

Event ID: 41032

Level: Information

Web Conferencing Server Office Web Apps Server (WAC) discovery has succeeded

Office Web Apps Server internal presenter page: _https://oos.contoso.com/m/Presenter.aspx?a=0&e=true&
Office Web Apps Server internal attendee page: _https://oos.contoso.com/m/ParticipantFrame.aspx?a=0&e=true&
Office Web Apps Server external presenter page: _https://oos.contoso.com/m/Presenter.aspx?a=0&e=true&
Office Web Apps Server external attendee page: _https://oos.contoso.com/m/ParticipantFrame.aspx?a=0&e=true&

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