Fixing Vista's Default Web Development Settings

re: Fixing Vista's Default Web Development Settings

mehfuzh — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 19:26:50 GMT

I wonder why Asp.net is not enabled by default. I think it is a matter to consider :-)

re: Fixing Vista's Default Web Development Settings

Rob — Fri, 23 May 2008 09:55:51 GMT

It's worth mentioning (as a timesaver!) that you can get to "Windows Features" more quickly by hitting the start menu and typing "optionalfeatures" (without the quotes) as this is the name of the EXE that runs. Anything to shave a bit of time off that thing loading! :)

On the "off by default", surely anything that minimises the attack surface is a good thing? Are you *sure* you hadn't switched on Classic ASP yourself as it's off by default, see: blogs.iis.net/.../tips-for-classic-asp-developers-on-iis7.aspx

re: Fixing Vista's Default Web Development Settings

Bill Staples — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 04:08:12 GMT

Actually, IIS7 installs only a static-file web server by default. This is to provide a minimal web server that is secure by default and easy to customize for your particular needs. Classic ASP is not installed by default, but since you upgraded from XP, IIS preserved your settings and left ASP installed. It sounds like for your particular box, ASP.NET was not upgraded, however, which would be a bug. ASP.NET should have been enabled as well, assuming you had it installed on XP before the upgrade.

re: Fixing Vista's Default Web Development Settings

ca8msm — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 08:45:02 GMT

"It just looks different in Vista with IIS7."

Yes, that's definitely true as the process you've clearly described above is a lot different to how you enabled it in win2k3.

re: Fixing Vista's Default Web Development Settings

tanglin05 — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 17:30:47 GMT

@ca8msm- That's true and a good point. I've admittedly done most of my dev work over the years on WinXP or well configured Win 2k3 boxes (as in, I didn't run in to the problem on Win2k3), but it is fair to note this is not a totally new problem. It just looks different in Vista with IIS7.

That said, I still think it is silly to disable ASP.NET dev features on a consumer OS when all other dev features are enabled by default. I suppose this quirk just reveals how Win2k3-based Vista really is.

-Todd

re: Fixing Vista's Default Web Development Settings

ca8msm — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 10:12:06 GMT

This isn't just new to Vista. ASP.NET support was also disabled by default in Windows Server 2003 so it's something that has been around for a while.