Awesome article Stefan, thanks! I have a few questions, I would be really grateful for some insights:
1) I found some SP2016 course material that says you have to run the “$webapp.WebService.EnableSideBySide = $true;” script on every server in the farm before you start. Is this true?
2) I’m confused about the side-by-side directory referencing… With CSS & JS files being copied to the version directories in \template\layouts\\, does this mean that these files are *never* being loaded from plain old “\template\layouts\” anymore? (There seems to be no “disable side-by-side” operation at the end of the patch process, which would “reset” the references back to the original folder…? This would be logical to me. 🙂 )
3) The official ZDP instructions on TechNet [https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/mt743024(v=office.16).aspx] differ from your instructions. They say that you have to configure $webapp.WebService.SideBySideToken = “BuildNumberInQuotes” after patching, you say before…? (I can understand that assuming that the concept is that you never disable side-by-side, so you would always reference a version directory…?)
Thanks for any help!