How to Setup Windows Sharepoint Services 3.0

Download the Windows Sharepoint Services 3.0 from the Microsoft Site here. If you are installing it on a Windows 2003 machine, you might get this error:

Setup is unable to proceed due to the following error(s):
-This product requires at least Windows Worflow Foundation version 3.0.4203.2, which is part of the .NET Framework 3.0.
-This product requires ASP.NET v2.0 to be set to 'Allow' in the list of Internet Information Services(IIS) Web
Correct the issue(s) listed above and re-run setup.

Go ahead and download the .NET 3.0 redistributable here.

after installing it and correcting the IIS issue. Run the WSS setup again and select Advanced setup. Then you will come to an screen where you can specify the Server type. From the documentation, this is the difference between Web Front End and Stand-Alone:

Web Front End – only install components required to render content to users. Can add servers to form a SharePoint farm.

A Web server accepts HTTP requests from client computers and passes them to an application server, a database server, or some other computer for processing. When the additional processing is performed, the Web server sends the result back to the client as a Web page. A Web server cannot be used for data storage, search, or as an application server.

Stand-alone – Install all components on a single computer (includes embedded database engine). Cannot add servers to create a SharePoint farm.

A stand-alone, or basic, installation configures a single computer with all the necessary files and settings to create a fully-functioning Windows SharePoint Services implementation, including Web server, application server, and database. An embedded database engine is installed and configured to provide data storage capability. Although the embedded database engine is based on Microsoft SQL Server architecture, it has the following limitations:

• Lack of enterprise features support.
• Limited to one CPU.
• One gigabyte (GB) memory limit for the buffer pool.
• Databases have a 4 GB maximum size

For the developer machine, choose the stand alone option. After the installation finishes, start the configuration wizard. You might be prompted to start IIS, Sharepoint Admin Service, Sharepoint Timer Service, Click YES on that prompt.

Once this setup is done, you will have a Sharepoint site working on your local machine. You can now create sites with workflows on it and specify different options. It seems that the only workflow you can create is Parallel workflows. I will need to do a little bit more researching on this.