IIS 7.0 Server-Side

IIS 7.0 Url Rewriter gotchas when importing mod_rewrite rules

2008-12-08T02:16:00Z

One of the best things to happen to IIS 7.0 recently is the release of Url Rewriter , the IIS 7.0 url rewriting equivalent to Apache's mod_rewrite. To ease the process of migrating Apache apps (notably PHP applications that rely on mod_rewrite rules for SEF / friendly urls), the Url Rewriter IIS Manager snapin includes an import function that can import mod_rewrite rules automatically. Apparently not everyone knows about this little gem, so if you need to get mod_rewrite rules running on IIS...(read more)

IIS 7.0 Forms Authentication and Embedded Media Players

2008-11-16T22:04:00Z

One of the useful benefits of IIS 7.0 and the ASP.NET Integrated mode is the ability to protect all content using ASP.NET Forms Authentication. In the past, people would often protect the application pages themselves, and leave images and media content open for public access. It wasn’t easy to extend the same internet-based authentication scheme to static content unless the static content was served through custom handlers. Even this wasn’t a perfect solution as you’d often lose...(read more)

When to restart IIS when making changes to your application

2008-09-12T06:02:00Z

Knowing when to restart IIS to pick up various types of changes to your application has traditionally been a challenge. IIS and ASP.NET are both stateful software systems, which heavily rely on cached state that is loaded once to provide high performance. They also recognize the downside of being stateful - having to refresh the state when the underlying data changes - and most of the time provide mechanisms for picking up the changes automagically (typically via file change notifications/ReadDirectoryChangesW)....(read more)

Leverage the Top 10 Performance Improvements in IIS 7.0

2008-08-03T00:40:00Z

IIS 7.0 improves on the already solid performance of its predecessor in quite a few places. But the real power lies in the new capabilities IIS 7.0 provides that can significantly improve performance, scalability, and reduce operational costs of running web applications...(read more)

Trace IIS 7.0 Errors Like a Pro with Failed Request Tracing

2008-08-01T04:25:00Z

When dealing with hard to find IIS 7.0 errors, I break out the trusty Failed Request Tracing. My favorite way of doing this is through the command line...(read more)

Make your next IIS 7.0 web server a lean one

2008-06-17T04:04:00Z

Among IT circles, IIS 7.0’s modularity is definitely one of its most welcomed traits. It promises a significantly reduced surface area, lightweight management overhead, and better performance. Ever wonder how far you can go with modularizing IIS 7.0? ...(read more)

The next step

2008-05-27T05:46:00Z

It's been one week since I left Microsoft, and what a week its been! I dont remember the last time I was on so little sleep :) I'll be making some changes to www.mvolo.com and posting more info about the new stuff shortly. I have to say though that my focus is still almost completely on IIS 7.0 and related Windows Server 2008 tech. In the past week, I've been doing more learning and writing code than I have in a long time, which has been extremely exciting. I've been working on and...(read more)

Connecting to IIS 7.0 configuration remotely with Microsoft.Web.Administration

2008-05-27T03:20:00Z

IIS 7.0 provides a number of APIs that you can use to manage configuration remotely. This post provides the info and tools you need to configure remote access to IIS 7.0 configuration, including for use on Server Core installations....(read more)

Leaving Microsoft ...

2008-05-14T21:54:00Z

After almost 5 years at the company, I am both sad and excited to say that I’ll be leaving the IIS team and Microsoft at the end of this week. Looking back , I can say that my experience at Microsoft has been truly amazing. I got to ship two amazing products, ASP.NET 2.0, and IIS 7.0. I got to do what I love to do – design and build platform technology, while working with great people on the most ambitious web technologies Microsoft has ever released. I wrote more about my experience...(read more)

The IIS 7.0 Resource Kit Book

2008-05-01T05:59:00Z

The IIS 7.0 Resource Kit Book is out! Coming straight from the IIS 7.0 team and some of our best MVPs, this should be the best IIS 7.0 book out there today ... ...(read more)

IconHandler 2.0: file icons in your ASP.NET applications

2008-04-27T06:27:00Z

Since its release, IconHandler has been a pretty popular module (on its own and with the custom DirectoryListingModule ). Today, I am releasing v2.0 of IconHandler, which contains some much-requested functionality and fixes a few issues that people have reported with the original version. ( I don’t RTFM, take me to download ) Here are the notable changes in v2.0: 1. Icon pre-generation . The IconHandler now includes IconGen.exe , a tool you can use to export all of the icons registered on your...(read more)

Mvolo.com moves again

2008-04-25T19:02:00Z

Ever since I started blogging about IIS 7.0, I had the plan to do it on a server that was running the actual technology I was blogging about ... I deviated a little from the plan when I first stated out, making the first few posts using GoDaddy's QuickBlog . Shortly afterwards, I moved to a self-hosted IIS 7.0 IDX 1 server sitting in my roommate's garage. It was the first server on the internet to run Community Server in Integrated mode (that was a big deal to me back than, as many apps we...(read more)

Creating portable ASP.NET applications that work on IIS 6.0, IIS 7.0 Classic, and IIS 7.0 Integrated modes

2008-04-15T15:30:00Z

ASP.NET applications in IIS 7.0 Integrated mode requires configuration changes if they define custom modules or handlers ... However, it is possible to create portable ASP.NET applications that can function in all three environments without configuration changes....(read more)

Using Visual Studio 2005 with IIS 7.0

2008-04-04T16:05:00Z

I've blogged quite a bit about using Visual Studio to develop and debug IIS 7.0 applications in the past. A few weeks back, I put together a detailed article about using Visual Studio 2008 to work with IIS 7.0 applications, collecting all the various how-to and gotchas in one place. Now, you can find the same information for Visual Studio 2005, in a new article titled Using Visual Studio 2005 with IIS 7.0....(read more)

Backing up and restoring IIS 7.0 shared configuration

2008-03-25T18:41:00Z

Bill's recent post reminded me of a question I often get about backing up and restoring configuration when IIS 7.0 is being used in the Shared Configuration mode. In this mode, the applicationHost.config file is stored on a UNC share to allow multiple IIS 7.0 servers to share a single configuration file. ...(read more)