SharePoint 2013 Configuration Failed! SQL Does Not Have the Required MaxDegree of Parallelism Setting of 1

By Microsoft MVP and MCT · Pluralsight Author

Published October 15, 2012 · Updated January 15, 2026 · SharePoint

For those of you who are used to installing SharePoint 2010 according to best practices (SPFARM only has DBCreator and Security Admin) , when you run configuration wizard the first time, it might fail with  this error message :

SharePoint Products Configuration Wizard showing Configuration Failed because SQL Server does not have the required max degree of parallelism setting of 1

This is because SQL, by default has the MaxDegree of Parallelism Setting set at 0. With SharePoint 2010 there was no problem, however SharePoint 2013 needs the MaxDegree of Parallelism Setting explicitly at 1.

Here is How you set it Step By Step:

1. Go in SQL Management Tools and connect to the SQL instance hosting your SharePoint.  (Using SQL Administrator credentials)

2. Right Click on the Sql Instance, and click Properties.

SQL Server Management Studio Object Explorer with the right-click menu open on the SQL instance and Properties at the bottom

3.  Go into the Advanced Tab

Select a page list in SQL Server instance properties with the Advanced page highlighted

4. Close to the end of the options list, you will find the “Max Degree of Parallelism Option”. Set it to 1.

SQL Server Advanced properties with the Parallelism section showing Max Degree of Parallelism set to 1

5. You’re ALMOST done!.

If  you got this error message,  it means that SharePoint already created the Config Database.
Delete it manually from SQL, re-run SharePoint Configuration Wizard and it will finish successfully.