Announcing General Availability of SharePoint Server 2019

At Microsoft Ignite we broadly announced our vision, strategy, timeline, and investment areas for SharePoint Server 2019.

Today we’re excited to announce general availability of both SharePoint Server 2019 and Project Server 2019.  As we developed SharePoint Server 2019, we paid close attention to trends in team collaboration, user experiences across devices, and how the cloud can be blended into existing on-premises scenarios in new and compelling ways.

SharePoint Server 2019

Since we announced our preview for SharePoint Server 2019, we’ve been working hard to get this out to you and we know that you’ve been waiting patiently since we announced that it was coming. 

SharePoint Server 2019 represents a whole new generation of SharePoint, one born in the cloud, and representative of the ease of use we delivered in SharePoint Online.

SharePoint Server 2019 was built on the same core platform as SharePoint Server 2016, providing the scale and performance you’ve come to expect in addition to new, modern experiences for users, that are both intuitive and familiar. 

What’s in SharePoint Server 2019

New user experiences

More than ever, how people interact with technology is much more than just “look and feel.” Great experiences are those that both look great and work flawlessly, entertain and engage, with rich, contextual, and relevant content. The improvements to the SharePoint Server 2019 user experiences are those that are easy to use, and ensure reliability, performance, and security under real-world pressures of scale and complexity.

Modern sites

Sites have always been at the heart of collaboration with SharePoint. They connect your team with the content, the information and the apps you rely on and they enable sharing and communication within the team and across the organization.

The modern experience is designed to be compelling, flexible, mobile, and easier to use. It is available in SharePoint

In SharePoint Server 2019 you’ll find a modern team site experience, with an engaging home page personalized by the power of SharePoint search.

Learn more about modern experiences in SharePoint in Office 365 including what they are and how you recognize them at https://support.office.com/article/sharepoint-classic-and-modern-experiences-5725c103-505d-4a6e-9350-300d3ec7d73f?ui=en-US&rs=en-US&ad=US.

Modern pages

SharePoint Server 2019 includes modern site pages, using modern pages is a great way to share ideas using images, Excel, Word and PowerPoint documents, embed video content, and more. You can create and publish modern pages quickly and easily, and they look great on any device.

Modern pages provide a fast, easy way to build responsive pages using the functionality of modern web parts. Pages are similar to classic web part pages and publishing pages, but are less structured and easier to create. To learn more about modern pages, see https://support.office.com/article/add-a-page-to-a-site-b3d46deb-27a6-4b1e-87b8-df851e503dec.

Modern lists

SharePoint lists provide individual and teams the ability to access, share, and collaborate around structured data and to bring information from other systems into SharePoint to support business process.  SharePoint Server 2019 introduces a modern list experience that simplifies how people create, curate, and interact with information with a rich set of capabilities that work across devices and browsers.

For more detailed information, see https://support.office.com/article/differences-between-the-new-and-classic-experiences-for-lists-and-libraries-30e1aab0-a5cc-4363-b7f2-09e2ae07d4dc.

Modern libraries

Helping people share files and collaborate on content has always been central to SharePoint. SharePoint Server 2019 provides a better experience for document libraries that’s faster, more intuitive and responsive with modern document libraries.

Modern document libraries combine the power of SharePoint with OneDrive usability - modern document libraries have an updated user interface that offers an experience similar to OneDrive, so it’s more intuitive to create a new folder and upload files in the browser.

For more detailed information, see https://support.office.com/article/differences-between-the-new-and-classic-experiences-for-lists-and-libraries-30e1aab0-a5cc-4363-b7f2-09e2ae07d4dc.

Communication sites

SharePoint has always been at the core of collaboration – people working together on files, lists, and libraries.  SharePoint Server 2019 embraces and provides a new generation of the mobile and intelligent intranet, allowing you to communicate to people throughout your organization with beautiful, dynamic, mobile-ready communication sites and pages that keep everyone informed and engaged.

Learn more about communication sites at https://support.office.com/article/what-is-a-sharepoint-communication-site-94a33429-e580-45c3-a090-5512a8070732.

OneDrive for Business

SharePoint Server 2019 provides improved mobile access to content, people, and applications along with engaging and responsive experiences across devices and screen sizes. It makes file storage and document collaboration more people-centric with new support for the latest generation of sync clients with OneDrive for Business. 

SharePoint Mobile

The intranet is the nerve center of many organizations. It provides content-centric collaborative spaces that give teams the resources they need to work together. It lets users consume and contribute news and information within their teams and across the organization. It manages knowledge and connects users to content through navigation and search. It hosts applications that support and automate business processes.

SharePoint Server 2019 makes your intranet more accessible on the go, more intelligent, and more personalized, based on your activities across sites, the people you work with, the content you work on and the business processes you drive.

Get the SharePoint mobile at https://aka.ms/getSPmobile.

Large File Support, Character Restrictions, and File/Folder Names

The world of collaboration has changed, text-based files are shifting to modern media, videos, audio, and more.  SharePoint Server 2019 provides support for uploading files up to 15GB.

Files are as unique as the people who create them.  SharePoint Server 2019 delivers support for a broad array of types and naming conventions to include support for # and % as supported characters in file and folder names across document libraries in SharePoint and OneDrive for Business.  This will allow people to create, store, and sync files containing # and % characters whether those characters are used as a prefix or suffix to the file or folder name.

In addition, SharePoint Server 2019 increases the URL path length restrictions from 260 Unicode code units to 400.

This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to what’s new in SharePoint Server 2019.  For a complete list of new features and capabilities refer to the new SharePoint Server 2019 Reviewer’s Guide at https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=2006360.

Try it out and share your feedback

You can download SharePoint Server 2019 today via the Microsoft Download Center and share feedback directly with our engineering teams through the new SharePoint Server 2019 Forum.  We also welcome feature requests and feedback via the SharePoint Server Suggestion Box on UserVoice, @SharePoint on Twitter, and in the comments below.  We’re eager to hear your feedback and use it to make SharePoint Server 2019 the best experience for information workers, IT professionals, and developers alike!

In addition, we’ve put together several resources to help you get started with SharePoint Server 2019:

• A quick start guide to help you install and deploy SharePoint Server 2019  [https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=2006253]
• A reviewer’s guide to share the many investments and new features you’ll find in SharePoint Server 2019 [https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=2006360]
• A PowerPoint presentation you can use to share more with others our investments in SharePoint Server 2019 [https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=2006361]

We look forward to hearing how you’re using SharePoint Server 2019 and what you think in the comments below.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q:  Can I install SharePoint Server 2019 in production environments?

A:  Yes.

Q:  Can I upgrade SharePoint Server 2019 Preview to RTM?

A:  No.  SharePoint Server 2019 Preview cannot be upgraded to RTM.

Q:  Where can I find technical documentation on SharePoint Server 2019?

A:  Technical documentation for SharePoint Server 2019 is available at https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/fp179725.aspx.