Easiest way to install IIS 7 on Vista

By default, IIS 7.0 is not installed on Windows Vista Business or Windows Vista Ultimate, but installing is pretty simple. You can do it via Windows Features in Advanced Options under Programs in Control Panel. However, there is an easier way:

Step #1: Run the following command

  • Open up the command prompt and paste the following (it may take a while):

<pre style="width: 418px; height: 64px">start /w pkgmgr /iu:IIS-WebServerRole;IIS-WebServer;IIS-CommonHttpFeatures;IIS-StaticContent;IIS-DefaultDocument;IIS-DirectoryBrowsing;IIS-HttpErrors;IIS-HttpRedirect;IIS-ApplicationDevelopment;
IIS-ASPNET;IIS-NetFxExtensibility;IIS-ASP;IIS-CGI;IIS-ISAPIExtensions;IIS-ISAPIFilter;IIS-ServerSideIncludes;IIS-HealthAndDiagnostics;IIS-HttpLogging;IIS-LoggingLibraries;IIS-RequestMonitor;IIS-HttpTracing;IIS-CustomLogging;IIS-Security;IIS-BasicAuthentication;IIS-URLAuthorization;IIS-RequestFiltering;IIS-IPSecurity;IIS-Performance;IIS-HttpCompressionStatic;IIS-HttpCompressionDynamic;IIS-WebServerManagementTools;IIS-ManagementConsole;IIS-ManagementScriptingTools;IIS-ManagementService;IIS-IIS6ManagementCompatibility;IIS-Metabase;IIS-WMICompatibility;IIS-LegacyScripts;IIS-LegacySnapIn;WAS-WindowsActivationService;WAS-ProcessModel;WAS-NetFxEnvironment;WAS-ConfigurationAPI

Step # 2: Check if the install was okay

  • Type the following (again in the command prompt:

<pre>echo %errorlevel%

Step # 3: Check if IIS is running

  • Open up your favorite browser and go to http://localhost.
  • If all went well, you should see the following page:

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VS.NET 2005 Web Application Projects vs. Web Site Projects

In the first release of Microsoft Visual Studio 2005, Microsoft introduced a new web application model called the Web Site Project for C#, which had many differences with the old model. Riots ensued, and in VS 2005 SP1 they were forced to introduce the Web Application Project for C# that worked much the way the old ones did.  Go here for more details.

Web Application Projects provide a companion web project model that can be used as an alternative to the built-in Web Site Project in Visual Studio 2005. This new model is ideal for web site developers who are converting a Visual Studio .Net 2003 web project to Visual Studio 2005.

So just an FYI to .NET developers: In any future C# Web Services you build (in VS 2005), you should be using the new Web Application Projects model.  (Thanks to Anton Sipos for reminding me.)

Cheers!

Submitting bugs through BugzScout

I was tasked to develop a proxy-like web interface wherein our company’s Marketing group didn’t have to go to Fogbugz directly.  To facilitate this, I wrote an ASP.NET Web Application that submits/POSTs to Fogbugz’s supplied ScoutSubmit.asp.

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FogBugz is a complete project management system for software teams. Designed by Joel Spolsky of Joel on Software fame, FogBugz helps you make better software by tracking, prioritizing, and coordinating the thousands of small tasks a development team has to do. FogBugz is web  based, so everyone on the team always sees the whole picture. Feature requests, customer email, bugs, even high level design discussions are instantly searchable and trackable.

Just in case you need to develop one yourself, here’s the link [on Fogbugz’s website] on how to do it.

Ten must-have tools every developer should download

Here’s an excellent article by James Avery discussing the must-have tools every developer should have in their toolbox arsenal.  Just to summarize:

  • NUnit to write unit tests
  • NDoc to create code documentation
  • NAnt to build your solutions
  • CodeSmith to generate code
  • FxCop to police your code
  • Snippet Compiler to compile small bits of code
  • Two different switcher tools, the ASP.NET Version Switcher and the Visual Studio .NET Project Converter
  • Regulator to build regular expressions
  • .NET Reflector to examine assemblies

Enjoy!