Setting up IIS7.5 in Windows 7 to run Classic ASP Web Sites

Hello, all! I just recently started using Microsoft's IIS 7.5 within Windows 7, as I just downloaded and installed the 90 day trial of Windows 7. (Got to love Microsoft for allowing 90 days) The main reason for downloading and testing Windows 7 is to test my current websites using Internet Explorer (IE) 9. (Of which all my sites run perfectly under IE9)

Now, I run ASP Classic Applications mostly, about 99% of my site scripts are ASP Classic, with just a touch of VB.NET (ASP.NET). So, to test my sites within Windows 7 while I am there, I installed IIS7.5 and setup Classic ASP to run on the windows 7 system, and here you go, the instructions on just how it is done.

Note: Total time to setup is about 3-5 minutes, depending on the speed of your system, and you will need the windows 7 CD.

1. Installing IIS7.5

Open Control Panel
Click [Programs]
Choose [Turn Windows features on or off]
When the [Windows features] dialog appears
Click on the [+] and the [] box beside [Internet Information Services]
(When you click the box it will turn blue, and the [World Wide Web Services] & [IIS Management Console] will become active as well. Do not uncheck these!)

Now, put a check beside the following item(s)
[IIS Metabase and IIS 6 configuration compatibility]

Click the [+] beside [World Wide Web Services]
Then the [+] beside [Application Development Features]
Put a check beside the following area's
>> ASP
>> ASP.NET
(Once you put checks beside these, other features will become active as well, leave them checked and continue)
Now click [OK]
(This process will take a few minutes, so be patient)

(When you are finished checking everything, it should look like this)

2. IIS Setup

Now that we have this done, we will need to go into IIS and do a few things in there next.
So, let’s open IIS
Click on the [Start] button and type in [IIS]
Choose [Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager]
(You can also setup your menu to show Administrative Tools, then drag the IIS Manager from Administrative tools into your Menu Bar, this is the best way to get to it and other applications quickly, since the Taskbar is no longer split within Win7)

Within IIS, click on the ellipse arrow beside the Server Name in the Left Panel
Click until you get to [Default Web Site]
Click on [Default Web Site]
Over in the Center Section, Double click on [ASP]
Then in the [Behavior] section
[Enable Parent Paths] change this to: [True]
(This makes it so that we can use ../file.asp within our INCLUDE FILES Without this set to true, you will receive an error)

Then under [Debugging Properties]
Set [Send Error To Browser] to: [True]
(This will allow for the errors to be viewable to your Browser)
(Make sure to save these changes, a Dialog will appear once you click out of the ASP Properties area, click [Save])

Now,
Right Click on the [Default Web Site]
Then [Manage Web Site]
Then [Advanced Settings]
(or) from the [Actions] panel on the Right, under [Manage Web Site] click on [Advanced Settings...]

(Menu Options)
(Right Navigation Option)

When the Dialog appears
Under [General]
Click on the [Physical path] (you will then see an ellipse button, Click on it, and choose the folder location where you have your site located.)
Mine are all kept in: (G:\InetPub\wwwroot\) and within Sub Folders from there, for each of my sites.
(Make it a practice to back up your sites on a regular basis, sometimes I forget, and kick myself for it. So create a script with RoboCopy and click it every time that you make a workable/keep worthy change to your page(s))

(Looks like this)

Now, I have my IP set to an In-house Static IP of: 192.168.2.9
So, you might want to check in on doing this as well, as it is a lot better than typing in localhost.
(Look at your Router configuration and set it accordingly)

Now, when you try to view your page it may give you a
[500 - The website cannot display the page] Error.
To get past this annoying error, do the following.

In Internet Explorer (This applies to all IE Releases)
From the Menu click on [Tools | Internet Options]
[Advanced] Tab
Under [Browsing]
Uncheck [Show friendly HTTP error messages].
Click [Apply] then [OK]

When opening your site for the first time after making these settings, it will take a moment for Internet Explorer to retrieve the page from IIS7.5, this only happens at the start, and will not happen again. I think that it has something to do with bounding to the IP Address?? Though I never seen this type of behavior in IIS4 or 5.1 so, maybe someone else can give a reason as to why it does this.

When your page loads, and you should either see an ASP Error message (or) your live page.

Good Luck and Happy ASP Classic Programming.

To view the Video Tutorial of this online at Youtube.com
Please click here =>  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiA-ox2OkI4

Carrzkiss
Written On: September 17, 2010
Revised On: September 21, 2010