Hoster Poster

Windows Web Server 2008 and SQL Server 2005

2008-04-16T20:35:00Z

If you haven't heard, the new Web SKU is a special, low-priced version of Windows that is focused exclusively on Internet-based Web serving. We've added a lot of new features and support for hardware compared to the old Windows 2003 Web edition. For more details about the SKU, check out Bill Staples' blog post at http://blogs.iis.net/bills/archive/2008/04/15/windows-web-server-2008-and-sql-server-2005.aspx.

One thing to note is if you want SQL Server 2005 on Web SKU. The installer blocks on Windows Web Server 2008 but we are providing a patch that will allow you to proceed with the installation. Before attempting to install SQL Server 2005, please download and install the patch from the Download Center page found at: SQL Server 2005 Installer Hotfix for Windows Web Server 2008 x86/x64.

Silverlight apps not working/downloading on IIS 6.0? Try your mime types...

2008-03-22T21:17:00Z

On IIS 6.0, there are no mime types for Silverlight by default (IIS6 was released a good deal prior to Silverlight and as with any type of content, you need to configure your web server to support it)... so you might experience that your app appears to be stuck waiting to download, but in reality it was not able to serve the request due to mime types.

Here are instructions in http://learn.iis.net/page.aspx/262/silverlight/, and a handy script, for configuring IIS 6.0 mime types to enable Silverlight.

IIS7 on Windows Server 2008 includes the appropriate mime types by default.

Delegating error messages in IIS 7.0

2008-03-22T21:07:00Z

There are two settings you should be aware of for hosting that relate to delegation of errors.

1. Delegating ASP's scriptErrorSentToBrowser setting:

You should definitely turn on the ASP script errors, otherwise your customers won't see the useful errors from Classic ASP that IIS 6.0 showed. What your customers will see is the generic error, “An error occurred on the server when processing the URL. Please contact the system administrator.”

This is because detailed ASP error messages are not sent to the browser by default for security reasons. In order to see the details of the error message, you may need to enable sending error messages to the browser.

The article http://learn.iis.net/page.aspx/209/asp/ explains the steps to safely delegate this setting to customers to enable them to get error information in the browser.

2. Delegating errorMode in httpErrors:

The error modes control how much detail the customer can see, and it is possible to unlock specific attributes so the customer can control only the aspects of this setting that you want to allow.

The article http://learn.iis.net/page.aspx/405/httperrors/ explains how to Delegate the errorMode setting to enable customers to get detailed information on errors, also important for troubleshooting tasks.

New web deployment tool is available

2008-01-23T21:46:00Z

Hey everyone, long time since the last blog post but we're still here and we have some great news to report. The IIS team just released the Microsoft Web Deployment Tool on www.iis.net. It is a command-line tool that provides support for deploying, synchronizing and migrating IIS 6.0 and 7.0. It supports moving configuration, content, SSL certificates and other types of data associated with a web server. You can choose to sync a single site or the entire web server. It's pretty flexible, as you'll discover from the documentation.

However - it is a technical preview, so it shouldn't be used for production servers and it may change quite a bit before it ships as a finished tool. The team is interested in feedback from the hosting community, so give it a try and let them know what you think or if you find any issues.

Check out this post for more details and to learn more from the team that built the tool: http://blogs.iis.net/msdeploy/archive/2008/01/22/welcome-to-the-web-deployment-team-blog.aspx

FastCGI makes PHP fast and reliable on IIS

2007-10-03T17:27:00Z

Microsoft has just announced the Go Live release of its FastCGI Extension for IIS 5.1/6.0 (FastCGI Extension). This FastCGI Extension release is supported on IIS 6.0 on Windows Server 2003 for a fully scalable production environment and IIS 5.1 on Windows XP in order to support developers who build their Web applications on Windows client machines. This provides developers easy access to build and deploy a broader range of Web applications on the Microsoft platform. Here's the full announcement for even more information about the release.

Hosting ASP.NET for .NET Framework 3.5 Beta 2 in Medium or Partial Trust

2007-08-06T18:26:00Z

If you're hosting the .NET Framework 3.5 (Beta 2) or planning on it, keep in mind there is some additional work required for the Beta 2 bits. The attached document describes two issues (and their corresponding workarounds) when hosting ASP.NET websites using .NET Framework 3.5 Beta 2 under Medium or partial trust. The issues and workarounds apply only to .NET Framework 3.5 Beta 2, and will be addressed in the final version of the product.

The first issue is for developers and this section explains what they need to change so they can create partial trust applications in Visual Studio 2008 Beta 2. The second issue covers what a hoster needs to enable in Code Access Security on the server in order to host an ASP.NET application in partial trust that leverages LINQ. Specifically, there are flags needed for the ReflectionPermission and this is covered in the LINQ features section starting on page 4.

Matt Gibbs made a post in his blog for developers and hosters can share this information with their customers.

IIS 7 shared hosting guidance

2007-05-28T18:26:00Z

We're releasing a draft version of our shared hosting guidance for Windows Server 2008 and IIS 7.0.

Currently it covers mainly IIS 7.0 and ASP.NET 2.0, but we will be adding more content for other components.

Highlights for shared hosting on IIS 7.0 covered in this document:
·         Ability to share configuration between multiple servers
·         Centralized management for servers and web farms
·         Remote administration for non-administrators
·         Custom delegation of features for each site or application
·         Improved performance and security for CGI applications on Windows
·         Isolated configuration for application pools

Specifically, you will learn the recommendations for IIS 7 shared hosting, how to configure remote administration, how to share your server configuration between a web farm, how to configure PHP and ASP.NET and more. This version of the draft was tested on Windows Server 2008 Beta 3.

What else should we add?

If anyone needs this in the Word 2003 format, just let us know.

Go live with IIS 7 today!

2007-04-26T15:24:00Z

The IIS team has announced that Windows Server Codename "Longhorn" Server Beta 3 has reached a high level of quality and is ready for your testing. You can test awesome new hosting features in IIS 7 and roll it out for beta hosting.

Find out how to get the bits!

ASP.NET applications running out of memory?

2007-04-25T19:40:00Z

One thing you can do to help save memory usage is to enable the WorkstationGC. The GC, or garbage collector, manages the memory for appDomains.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/911716

Microsoft's Hosting Summit 2007 - Day 2

2007-03-21T15:29:00Z

Yesterday was the second day at the Hosting Summit. There are folks from around the world here. We started off with great keynotes from Michael O'Hara and John Zanni, and of course, a hilarious spoof of Devil Wears Prada from the Exchange team. Highlights include WBH 4.5 being released and the HMC solution being driven by a new group run by Dave Thompson, with the horizon showing cool things like a migration kit from 3.5 to 4.0.

Being a technology blog, our focus is on Technology for Hosting - the presentation from Scott Guthrie was very good, Bill Staples did some amazing demos of IIS 7 and in a later session expanded on the benefits of IIS 7 for hosters. The key message being that IIS 7 is built for hosting. There are a number of design changes and features around hosting, isolation and performance. For IIS 7 Server Beta 3, there will be a go live license enabling hosters to go into production with IIS 7. Dan Winn from SQL followed up with an overview of SQL, a demo of the Publishing Wizard and info about what SQL editions to use for shared, dedicated and virtual dedicated. Their team is also working on hosting guidance for SQL and a web administration tool.

What a day... now onto Day 3, the final day!

[Edit: Corrected link to the video]

Using WMI to change the local administrator password for all servers in an OU or Container

2007-02-20T20:31:00Z

Just sharing a nice little script to query all the computers in an OU and change the local Administrator password for each one. One thing to note, if your computers happen to be in the default Computers container, you need to change the LDAP query from "OU=Finance" to "CN=Computers" (CN indicates container).

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/scriptcenter/resources/qanda/oct04/hey1015.mspx

IIS requests could be slower if your log file directory is invalid or offline

2007-02-16T02:14:00Z

If you are pointing your W3SVC log files to a location that is incorrect or goes offline, especially if it is a remote UNC share like \\server\logs – your requests on IIS 6 could be slower. The reason is that HTTP.sys wants to write an entry for each request and there is a delay when it tries to write to an invalid location. This would be even slower if it is an invalid UNC share, since the timeout waiting for a response would be longer.

Make sure that your log file directory is valid and that your permissions are valid, allowing the machine account write access to the location. The good news is that this shouldn’t be a problem for IIS 7.

FPSE on IIS 7 Longhorn

2007-02-13T15:32:00Z

An update from Robert about FPSE:

"Because Microsoft realizes that the FrontPage Server Extensions are essential to many web hosting companies, the Internet Information Services product team is researching the development of an updated version of FPSE 2002 that will work with Microsoft Windows codenamed "Longhorn" and Microsoft Windows Vista."

http://blogs.iis.net/robert_mcmurray/archive/2007/02/08/frontpage-server-extensions-on-vista-and-longhorn.aspx.

Getting 64-bit or 32-bit applications working on IIS 6.0 x64

2007-02-12T18:28:00Z

When running on x64 hardware, you have two options. First, to run in native 64-bit mode. This means all the applications running need to be 64-bit. The second is to run worker processes in 32-bit mode, which means all applications need to be 32-bit. This gives you good compatibility and performance is really good too.

Here's how to install the 32-bit or 64-bit versions of ASP.NET, as well as the option you need to run for IIS to get them working. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/894435

SharePoint v3 templates - the fantastic 40

2007-02-09T16:48:00Z

The new SharePoint templates have arrived. To provide a complete solution, especially for small businesses, SharePoint v3 offers these pre-packaged templates. Each one solves a business problem and offers not only a fully functioning site out of the box, but also allows for customization so you can differentiate what you offer.

If you don't have SharePoint in your environment yet, maybe it's time! To get the technical deployment details, read the whitepaper we just blogged about at http://office.microsoft.com/search/redir.aspx?AssetID=AM102157711033.

Download the templates and learn more about them: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/windowsserver/sharepoint/wssapps/templates/default.mspx.

To see the templates in action:

Visit http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/sharepoint/templates/default.aspx and browse the links on the left-hand pane. The Business Performance Reporting template shows you a business who is collecting customer satisfaction data and sharing this information with his colleagues.