Installing IIS 7 on Windows Vista and Windows 7

• 10/26/2007
• 3 minutes to read
• Contributors
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by IIS Team

Introduction

Advances in cloud technologies have led many users to use Windows Azure Web Sites to host both a production site and test site, as it makes it easy to test various configurations without impacting their own personal computers. If you still prefer to do this on your desktop, you can install IIS on it, as well as other applications and extensions easily using the Microsoft® Web Platform Installer (Web PI). To learn more about the Web PI, see Learn about and install the Web PI.

If you choose to install IIS 7.0 or above manually, you can use this article for guidance.

Before You Begin

Ensure that you have installed one of the editions of Windows Vista or Windows 7 on which IIS 7 and above is supported before you proceed. Not all IIS features are supported on all editions of Windows Vista and Windows 7. Home Basic and Starter editions include only limited basic features of IIS. To see a list of which features are supported on the edition of Windows you are using, see one of the following:

• Available Role Services in IIS 7.0 (Windows Vista)
• Available Web Server (IIS) Role Services in IIS 7.5 (Windows 7)

Also be sure that you have administrative user rights on the computer. By default, you do not have administrative user rights if you are logged on as a user other than the built-in administrator, even if you were added to the local Administrators group on the computer (this is a new security feature in Windows Server® 2008 called Local User Administrator). Log on either to the built-in administrator account, or explicitly invoke applications as the built-in administrator by using the runas command-line tool.

Note that you can run runas /user:administrator cmd.exe so that every application you run from that command line will be elevated, eliminating the need to use the runas syntax from that command line.

If you are logged on to an account other than the built-in local administrator account, you may see the following security alert dialog box.

Figure 1: Windows Security (User Account Control)

Install IIS 7 or Above

1. To open the Windows Features dialog box, click Start, and then click Control Panel.
   
   Figure 2: Windows Vista Start menu
2. In the Control Panel, click Programs.
   
   Figure 3: Control Panel Home
3. Click Turn Windows features on or off.
   
   Figure 4: Control Panel install options
4. You may receive the Windows Security warning. Click Allow to continue. The Windows Features dialog box is displayed.
   
   Figure 5: Windows Security dialog box
5. Expand Internet Information Services.Additional categories of IIS features are displayed. Select Internet Information Services to choose the default features for installation.
   
   Figure 6: Windows Features dialog box - IIS
6. Expand the additional categories displayed, and select any additional features you want to install, such as Web Management Tools.
   
   Figure 7: Windows Features dialog box - IIS feature selection
7. If you are installing IIS for evaluation purposes, you may want to select additional features to install. Select the check boxes for all IIS features you want to install, and then click OK to start installation.
   
   Figure 8: Windows Features dialog box - Installation selection
8. The progress indicator appears.
   
   Figure 9: Progress indicator
9. When the installation completes, the Windows Features dialog box closes, and the Control Panel is displayed.
   
   Figure 10: Control Panel Home page
10. IIS is now installed with a default configuration on Windows Vista or Windows 7. To confirm that the installation succeeded, type the following URL into your browser, http://localhost.
    
    Figure 11: Default Web site
11. Next, you can use Internet Information Services Manager to manage and configure IIS. To open IIS Manager, click Start, type inetmgr in the Search Programs and Files box, and then press ENTER.
    
    Figure 12: Default Web Site Home page

If you want to use ASP, Microsoft® ASP.NET, or PHP, install the modules needed to host these pages; this can be done during the installation of IIS or after the installation is complete.

Use Unattended Setup to Install IIS 7.0 and above

IIS can also be installed unattended on Windows Vista. For detailed instructions and scripts, see Using Unattended Setup to Install IIS 7.0 and Above.

Links for More Information

IIS 7 Installation and Deployment

How to install ASP.NET 1.1 with IIS7 and Abobe on Vista and Windows 2008.

Installing IIS 7 on Vista.

Classic ASP Script Error Messages No Longer Shown in Web Browser by Default

• 02/19/2009
• 2 minutes to read
• Contributors
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by Robert McMurray

In earlier versions of IIS, error messages from classic ASP scripts were sent to a Web browser, by default. Because these error messages might reveal sensitive information to malicious users, IIS 7 and above disables this feature by default. When your classic ASP scripts encounter an error in IIS, you receive the following error message by default:

console

An error occurred on the server when processing the URL. Please contact the system administrator.

If you are the system administrator please click here to find out more about this error.

You can customize the ASP script error message, and also determine whether to return the script errors to a Web browser.

 Note

As a best practice for security, you should only enable sending ASP script error messages to a Web browser on a development or test computer; returning script error messages to a Web browser can unintentionally expose more information than you intended to show.

Working with User Access Control

You need to make sure that you follow the steps in this document by using an account that has full administrative permissions. This is best accomplished by using one of two methods:

• Log in to your computer by using the local administrator account.
• If you are logged in using an account with administrative permissions but that is not the local administrator account, open all applications and all command prompt sessions by using the "Run as Administrator" option.

These above conditions are required because the User Account Control (UAC) security component in Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 will prevent administrative access to the IIS configuration settings. For more information about UAC, see the following documentation:

• User Account Control

Customizing Classic ASP Error Messages

The configuration settings that you use to customize these settings are in the following list:

• scriptErrorMessage: This is an optional string attribute that specifies the error message that will be sent to the browser when specific debugging errors are not sent to the client.
• scriptErrorSentToBrowser: This is an optional Boolean attribute that specifies whether the writing of debugging specifics to the client browser is enabled.

You can configure these settings by using IIS Manager. To do so, open IIS Manager and navigate to the site or application where you want to enable or disable script messages, and then double-click the ASP feature.

In the list of ASP features, configure the Script Error Message and Send Errors To Browser options.

You can also configure these settings by using the command-line tool AppCmd.exe with the following syntax:

console

appcmd.exe set config "Default Web Site" -section:system.webServer/asp /scriptErrorMessage:"An error occurred."
appcmd.exe set config "Default Web Site" -section:system.webServer/asp /scriptErrorSentToBrowser:"False"

More Information

For additional information about the options that are available for classic ASP debugging, see the following page in the IIS configuration reference on the Microsoft IIS.net Web site:

https://www.iis.net/ConfigReference/system.webServer/asp

As an alternative to returning ASP script error messages to a Web browser, you can enable Failed Request Tracing on your server. For example, you could add a rule to trace HTTP 500 errors automatically, which the ASP engine generates when an error occurs. By analyzing the output in the Failed Request Tracing logs on your server, you can pinpoint the source of classic ASP errors. As an additional security note, Failed Request Tracing logs are not available to Web browsers, so the troubleshooting information is only available on your server. If you use Failed Request Tracing, it will also let you troubleshoot unmonitored classic ASP errors in detail without having to reproduce the errors.