Tuesday, May 11, 2004 3:24 PM szurgot

Windows XP Developer Request (Virtual Web Servers and IIS 6.0)

As a developer running Windows XP, I can do all of my development tasks pretty easily except for developing multiple web sites concurrently. There is a trick found here (http://dotnetjunkies.com/WebLog/demiliani/archive/2004/01/27/6153.aspx) that allows you to create and toggle between mutliple web servers, but doesn't it seem like you should be able to use Windows XP for a development platform for Windows 2000/2003 instead of having to install Windows 2003 or a workstation?

C'mon Microsoft, find a way to allow this on Windows XP (and also, a way to run IIS 6 on Windows XP, even if it is throttled)

I know they did this to prevent people from running servers on Windows XP, but maybe some way to open it up for development purposes.

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Comments

# Virtual Web Servers on XP

Tuesday, May 11, 2004 3:29 PM by TrackBack

# re: Windows XP Developer Request (Virtual Web Servers and IIS 6.0)

Tuesday, May 11, 2004 3:33 PM by Scott Galloway

I agree so much with this. Even a 'Windows XP Developer Edition' would be great. Especially when products like Sharepoint will only run on a Server!

# re: Windows XP Developer Request (Virtual Web Servers and IIS 6.0)

Tuesday, May 11, 2004 3:39 PM by Lorenzo Barbieri

Or perhaps a Windows 2003 Developer Server...

# re: Windows XP Developer Request (Virtual Web Servers and IIS 6.0)

Tuesday, May 11, 2004 4:19 PM by Paul Wilson

The main reason for wanting multiple sites can be eliminated if you always use app relative references (~) instead of root relative.

# re: Windows XP Developer Request (Virtual Web Servers and IIS 6.0)

Tuesday, May 11, 2004 4:30 PM by Chris Szurgot

App relative doesn't work when you have multiple applications under one main root.

# re: Windows XP Developer Request (Virtual Web Servers and IIS 6.0)

Tuesday, May 11, 2004 4:32 PM by kevin white

"use app relative references..."

Except that its commonly accepted as good practice to use root-relative references in markup. You also assume that the developer is only working on isolated applications that exist in sub-folders. This is not always the case. Sometimes the site is the application. Sometimes the application is one part of a larger site that the developer is responsible for.

Another way to solve this problem is to create, on a common server, seperate working areas for each developer. Each developer would have admin rights to server and be able to setup multiple development sites out of his work area. Many enterprise application platforms are configured in this way. The down-side to this model is cost and setup time.

It sure would be nice if MS solved this problem.

# re: Windows XP Developer Request (Virtual Web Servers and IIS 6.0)

Tuesday, May 11, 2004 4:46 PM by Shannon J Hager

no IIS 6, but this will help your multi-web problem, I think:
http://weblogs.asp.net/coltk/archive/2004/03/15/89543.aspx

# re: Windows XP Developer Request (Virtual Web Servers and IIS 6.0)

Tuesday, May 11, 2004 5:16 PM by kevin white

CassiniEX is very useful but its not fully feature-parallel with IIS. There are situations, like authentication, when CassiniEX just doesn't cut it.

# re: Windows XP Developer Request (Virtual Web Servers and IIS 6.0)

Tuesday, May 11, 2004 6:30 PM by Jerry Pisk

Kevin, application relative paths (~/) will be resolved to absolute paths (or root relative as you call them) when rendered. The application should not care if it runs off of the root or not. It should not care whether there are other applications running either.

# No IIS6 on Windows XP what a Big Bummer!

Sunday, July 04, 2004 10:08 PM by TrackBack

No IIS6 on Windows XP what a Big Bummer!

# re: Windows XP Developer Request (Virtual Web Servers and IIS 6.0)

Monday, July 05, 2004 1:32 AM by Jon Galloway

I recommend this program for installing and switching virtual roots on XP: http://www.mindxpand.be/iisadmin/

And I'd take issue with root relative development being a commonly accepted good practice. You can always create a virtual and move it around as your site / server topology demands, but it's difficult to move a root relative application into a virtual. I've cleaned up way too many root relative sites to be impartial here, though.