MOSS 2007 can be installed as a Stand-alone Server application or as a Server farm or as a Web Front End. MOSS 2007 installs WSS v3.0 automatically.

If you have only one server, you have no option but to install Stand-alone Type, this will install desktop database engine (SQL Server 2005 Express Edition) along. It will be an independent instance of SQL Server just for the SharePoint application. But this will result in very poor performance. And can only be used by a very small user group or just for learning purpose.

If you have to use it in a relatively larger setup you must install SharePoint farm (atleast one Complete - Install all components Server Type) with database on a different dedicated database server.

In this post I will show the steps for installing MOSS 2007 SharePoint farm:

Prerequisites: Please read this before installing Beta 2

Step 1: Start the installation by clicking the Setup.exe in the x86/x64(for 64 bit machine), and the installation starts with the following screen. Select the Complete Server Type option and click the Install Now button. This will take few minutes and will install the basic components.

Step 2: After the installation of basic components, it will automatically start the SharePoint Products and Technologies Wizard. This Wizard can even be started from the Start-->All Programs-->Microsoft Office Server-->SharePoint Products and Technologies Wizard link also. This will present a Welcome screen, Click the Next > button

Step 3: Next screen will be of Connect to a server farm, if it is the first server in the farm select the option "No, I want to create a new server farm" and if there are already one or more existing server, you can select either of the option "Yes, I want to connect to an existing server farm" or "No, I want to create a new server farm", Click the Next > button

Step 4: In this step specify the Configuration Database Settings. Do remember if your configuration database is hosted on another server, you must specify a domain account (Global Domain Account), Click the Next > button

Step 5: Next step is to Specify the port number for the SharePoint Central Administration Web Application. details of Web Application and the port number can be read from the following screen shot, Click the Next > button

Step 6: Finally it will show the Configuration Successful screen, Click the Finish button

Step 7:  This will open up the Central Administration homepage in the browser.

Step 8: In the Administrative Tasks as shown in the above screen-shot, Click on the "Initial Deployment: Assign Services to Servers" link, this will open-up the following page, Click the Action Link "Initial Deployment: Assign Services to Servers"

Step 9: It will open-up the following screen, just make sure you start all highlighted services in the list(or atleast the one shown as Started here) :

Step 10: Now go back to the Home-page as shown in Step 7 and click the "Application Management" tab, this will open-up the following screen, Now since Services on Server are started, "Create or extend Web application" will be displayed. Click the link.:

It will further show the following page, continue with the "Create a new Web Application" link:

Step 11: Now the Create New Web Application Screen will open. Fill the appropriate values. By default it will show some Port number but since I wanted to host the application on 80 port I changed it to 80. Also there please remember the following 

Notes:

1. In the Load Balanced URL section change the name of the server to the IP of the server in the URL, by doing this you will not require do DNS settings, if otherwise you can continue with the server name also,
2. In the Application Pool section select a configurable security account. I have given my security account  ID. In my case both Predefined options(Network Service/Local Service) didn't worked and gave error.

Step 12:  You will get the following screen on completion of Step 11. Now Click the "Create a new Windows SharePoint Services site collection." link