Back in the Sitecore world again!!

I have recently been able to get back into the Sitecore world and I am excited! I have been living in the Tridion world for a few years and it has been painful. With that being said it is not like Sitecore does not have it's pain points as well. Here are some I have run into as I start playing with version 9.

Keep your license file name "license.xml"

Using SIF to install locally only works with a license file named "license.xml". I had a temp license for awhile so in the file name I put the expiration date. I updated the install powershell script for SIF with the new license file name (yes in both places) and run the install. The install was fine until it tried to start the indexer window service. That step failed as the service would not start. When I looked at the logs the service said it was still looking for a file name "license.xml" and it was missing. Sure enough the license file I referenced was not copied over. I have not found the root cause of this yet, I just know changing it back to "license.xml" resolved the issue.

The prefix must be unique for all installs

When you set up your install.ps1 script for SIF you have to set the prefix for the install. I have installed a couple different instances to play with different things. Some of these had the same "demo" prefix. This will cause somethings (mainly the installed Window Services) to overlap and screw things up. So always make sure you have a unique prefix for all your instances.

Uninstalling, while manual, is not too painful

The above issue lead me into figuring the uninstall process out. While there is a nice script to install everything there is not a script to uninstall. There is a nice thread on StackExchange on doing this. How to Uninstall an instance created using the Sitecore Install Framework.

Access to the registry key 'Global' is denied.

This one was a bit hidden and you will not even know it is there unless you check your logs. Here is a nice blog with the fix.

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