Configuration Manager 2012 Powershell Pre-req Commands

Building a Configuration Manager 2012 server involves installing a number of Windows Server role and feature prerequisites before setup will proceed cleanly. Rather than adding each one manually through Server Manager, you can script it with PowerShell.

Typical Prerequisite Features

Install-WindowsFeature Web-Server,Web-WMI,BITS,RDC,NET-Framework-Core,Web-ISAPI-Ext,Web-ISAPI-Filter,Web-Metabase,Web-WMI,Web-Windows-Auth,Web-Basic-Auth,Web-Mgmt-Console -IncludeManagementTools

The exact list of required roles/features depends on which site system roles you’re installing on this particular server (a full Primary Site with SQL, Software Update Point, and Distribution Point needs more than a stand-alone Distribution Point does), and it varies slightly between ConfigMgr 2012, 2012 R2, and later Current Branch versions.

Recommended Approach

Rather than relying on a fixed list from an older post, run the ConfigMgr Setup prerequisite checker (prereqchk.exe from the installation media, or the check built into Setup itself) first — it tells you exactly which roles/features and hotfixes are still missing for your specific configuration, and Microsoft Learn’s current ConfigMgr site prerequisites documentation has the authoritative, version-specific list.

If You’re Building This Today Rather Than Maintaining a 2012 Site

Worth flagging plainly: Configuration Manager 2012 itself is a very old, long-out-of-support release — if you’re standing up a brand new site rather than working on an existing legacy environment, you should be installing current Configuration Manager (the rebranded, subscription-updated successor once called “SCCM Current Branch”) instead, not 2012 or 2012 R2. The general shape of this PowerShell approach still holds on current versions — Install-WindowsFeature against a role list, then letting prereqchk.exe or Setup’s own prerequisite check confirm what’s still missing — but the actual feature names and required IIS components have shifted over the years (later versions dropped some of the older WebDAV/Metabase-era requirements as IIS itself has evolved), so a script written for 2012 will very likely flag missing or unnecessary features against a current site install. Always regenerate the list against Microsoft Learn’s current prerequisites page for the specific site system role and ConfigMgr version you’re actually deploying, rather than reusing an old script as-is.