This one is a summary of my own experience for Sitecore Experience Commerce 9 Update 3 (aka Sitecore XC 9.0.3) installation on my machine. I’ve had much experience in the following ones:

• Sitecore XC9 installation
• Sitecore XC9 Update 1 installation
• Sitecore XC9 Update 2 installation

so I decided to go only with:

• Installation Guide – On Premises (Thanks Sitecore team!)

I do hope that this blog post is helpful for your own journey as well.

Note: personally, I wanted to play around with Sitecore Install Framework (SIF) version 2.0

Setup Prerequisites

Please refer to the Sitecore Experience Commerce 9 Compatibility Table for the software and version prerequisites:

• Windows 10
• Sitecore Experience Platform 9.0 Update 2
• Sitecore Experience Accelerator 1.8.0 (Note: must log into https://dev.sitecore.net/ before downloading)
• Sitecore Powershell Extensions 4.7.2
• .NET Core SDK 2.0.0
• .NET Core Windows Server Hosting 2.0.0
  • Note: you may get Sitecore Commerce APIs 500 error so should upgrade to .NET Core Windows Server Hosting 2.0.8
• Packages for On Premise 2018.12-2.4.63 (Note: must log into https://dev.sitecore.net/ before downloading)

Step-by-step guide

1. install the ones below if not yet 😀
   • a fresh Sitecore 9.0 Update 2 instance , let’s say sc903com.local and sc903com.xconnect.local (xConnect site)
     • Note: you must follow this one to make it work properly with SIF 2.0
     • 
     • thanks my fellow Sitecore MVP John Rappel
   • .NET Core SDK 2.0.0
   • .NET Core Windows Server Hosting 2.0.0
     • Note: you may get Sitecore Commerce APIs 500 error so should upgrade to .NET Core Windows Server Hosting 2.0.8
2. rebuild the Link databases for the master and core databases if not yet:
   • on the Sitecore Launchpad, click Control Panel, and in the Database section, click Rebuild Link Databases
   •  select the master and core databases and then click Rebuild
   • 
3. rebuild the search indexes if not yet:
   • on the Sitecore Launchpad, click Control Panel, and in the Indexing section, click Indexing manager
   •  in the Indexing Manager dialog box, click Select all, and then click Rebuild
   • 
4. DO NOT stop the xConnect site sc903com.xconnect.local
   • from the installation guide with love (Page 10)
   • 
   • ensure that Experience Analytics is working properly

     • This slideshow requires JavaScript.
     • Note: if there is any error
       • option 1: you will have to solve it before installing XC by opening the Sitecore log and then having a look at the error messages (normally, they’re certificate issues)
       • option 2: you may want to disable xDB and then fix the error later after installing XC successfully
5. create a new folder D:\sc903_com_install
6. create a certificate for the Sitecore Commerce Engine Connect to authenticate with the Sitecore XC Engine:
   • launch PowerShell as an administrator
   • create the certificate by running the following cmdlet:
     • New-SelfSignedCertificate -certstorelocation cert:\localmachine\my -dnsname “storefront.local”
   • export the certificate to a file by running the following cmdlet:
     • Export-Certificate -Cert cert:\localMachine\my\<Thumbprint-of-cert> -FilePath D:\sc903_com_install\storefront.local.cer
   • 
7. download MSBuild Microsoft Visual Studio Web targets (available from Nuget) then extract the Web targets package, copy the \tools\VSToolsPath\Web\Microsoft.Web.XmlTransform.dll file into D:\sc903_com_install
8. download Sitecore Experience Accelerator 1.8.0 for Sitecore 9.0 (Note: must log into https://dev.sitecore.net/ before downloading) and put it into D:\sc903_com_install
9. download Sitecore Powershell Extensions 4.7.2 then put it into  D:\sc903_com_install
10. download and unzip Packages for On Premise 2018.12-2.4.63 (Note: must log into https://dev.sitecore.net/ before downloading) then put it into D:\sc903_com_install
11. unzip D:\sc903_com_install\SIF.Sitecore.Commerce.1.4.7.zip and then rename D:\sc903_com_install\SIF.Sitecore.Commerce.1.4.7 to D:\sc903_com_install\SIF for a better practice
12. unzip the D:\sc903_com_install\Sitecore.BizFX.1.4.1.zip
13. unzip the D:\sc903_com_install\Sitecore.Commerce.Engine.SDK.2.4.43.zip file then copy the D:\sc903_com_install\Sitecore.Commerce.Engine.SDK.2.4.43\Sitecore.Commerce.Engine.DB.dacpac file into D:\sc903_com_install
14. download sc903_com_install.ps1 and put it into D:\sc903_com_install\SIF then open it to correct the following parameters:
    • $SitePrefix
    • $ScInstallDirectory
    • $SiteHostHeaderName
    • $SqlServer
    • $CommerceEngineCertificatePath
    • $SolrUrl
    • $SolrRoot
    • $SolrService
15. open D:\sc903_com_install\SIF\Configuration\Commerce\Solr\sitecore-commerce-solr.json to change the Name attribute to name  in order to make it work properly with SIF 2.0
    • 
16. (optional): you can specify any local account (note: it will be created automatically if non-existent) to be set up for the various application pools that are created as part of the deployment at line 74-75 of sc903_com_install.ps1
    • 
17. let’s install it
    • launch PowerShell as an administrator
    • change directory to D:\sc903_com_install\SIF
    • execute .\sc903_com_install
    • 
    • hopefully there is nothing can stop the installation process now
    • 
18. open a browser then navigate to storefront.local/, you would see the default page of Sitecore webiste. That’s because we don’t use the default host name sxa.storefront.com so we need to correct it inside Sitecore
    • log into sc903com.local/sitecore/
    • access /sitecore/content/Sitecore/Storefront/Settings/Site Grouping/Storefront
    • update Host Name to storefront.local and then publish it
    • 
    • refresh storefront.local/, you would see something like this
    • 
19. DO NOT forget to perform Post-Installation Steps
    • follow Post-Installation Steps (Page 14) in Sitecore Commerce 9 Update 3 Installation Guide

How to uninstall it?

• download sc903_com_uninstall.ps1 and put it into D:\sc903_com_install then open it to correct 07 parameters below:
  1. $EngineSuffix
  2. $Prefix
  3. $SolrService
  4. $PathToSolr
  5. $SqlServer
  6. $SqlAccount
  7. $SqlPassword
• launch PowerShell as an administrator
• change directory to  D:\sc903_com_install
• execute .\sc903_com_uninstall
  • 
• hopefully, it runs well and cleans everything up

Note: some known issues

1. Missing required parameter: name
   • 
   • open D:\sc903_com_install\SIF\Configuration\Commerce\Solr\sitecore-commerce-solr.json to change the Name attribute to name  in order to make it work properly with SIF 2.0
2. The service cannot accept control messages at this time
   • 
   • access IIS, start sc903com.local site and sc903com.local application pool manually (note: you may need to do it several times) if they’re in STOP status, somehow IIS cannot restart those ones after stopping them
3. Something went wrong restarting SQL server again: Cannot validate argument on parameter ‘InputObject’. The argument is null or empty. Provide an argument that is not null or empty, and then try the command again.
   • 
   • somehow SQL Server window service cannot restart after stopping, ensure SQL Server window service is running
4. ERROR Exception when executing agent aggregation/pathAnalyzerHistoryAgent
   Exception: Sitecore.XConnect.XdbCollectionUnavailableException
   Message: The HTTP response was not successful: Forbidden
   Source: Sitecore.Xdb.Common.Web
   • have a look at https://sitecorecorner.com/2017/10/25/sitecore-9-xconnect-ssl-and-that-403-forbidden/
   • ensure to remove all non-self-signed certificates out of Trusted Root Certification Authorities certificate store (you can move them to Intermediate Certification Authorities certificate store)
     • Note: should use this Windows Powershell command Get-Childitem cert:\LocalMachine\root -Recurse | Where-Object {$_.Issuer -ne $_.Subject} to find them out

Got issues?

Please send your issues (with screenshots if possible) to viet.hoang.sitecore@gmail.com so that I have a chance to understand your problem and be able to suggest the solution.

Happy Sitecore Installation!