Dear Simon,
thank you so much for the excellent response.
I am currently studying for my MCP in developing web apps with C# and VS
..NET, via a distance learning course with Computeach International. Part of
the course is the Microsoft Press MCAD book for exam 070-315 and I only need
the IIS so that I can create the virtual folders it has told me to create.
I am very new to programming (less than 9 months) and have only had a
computer for 3 years, so a lot of these things are totally new to me.
I won't be needing to create more than one application at a time but I will
be creating multi-document applications, so the XP Pro version of IIS would
suffice.
The thing that gets me is that when I downloaded the SQL Server from MSDE I
had to configure my IIS settings to get it to work, but now I can't find IIS
anywhere on my computer! I've looked in Admin tools but it isn't there, it
isn't in Add/Remove COM Components either. I've tried a search for it but
nothing came up. If it's possible to open the IIS screen through either the
command prompt or the Run... utility I only need the proper command to try
that out.
I'd really appreceiate it if you could come up with a solution for my
particular case.
Kind regards,
Alan
"Simon" wrote:
If you look around on the internet for "install IIS XP Home" you will find
that you can indeed get IIS running on XP Home.
However, as John said, this is a bitch to get working and requires a lot of
playing with settings even senior programmers wouldnt be happy tinkering.
My advise personally would be to go with the suggestions john made or take
the plunge and upgrade to Pro. I looked around on ebay and got the upgrade
for about 50 quid for a fully legitemate copy.
Bear in mind though:
- The Pro version lets you use Remote Control to dial up your computer and
control it from anywhere in the world. Home doesn't support that. It
supports Remote Assistance but not unsolicited remote control. For me that
feature was at least as important as IIS. It's shit hot as well. Nicely
implemented. Hell of a lot nicer to use that PCAnywhere Version 9
- Although you get the option of installing IIS under XP Pro, its a severely
crippled version that can make developing more than one application at a
time a complete pain in the arse. You're only allowed to host one site at a
time meaning that you have to use virtual directories which cause problems
with relative addressing in my applications. That may just be me, but I've
heard a lot of people complaining about this. A far better solution would be
to allow the user to make as many sites as possible but only allow say three
concurrent connections. At the moment I think your allowed something like
10.
- The next versions of Visual Studio (2005) comes with its own webserver
that lets you create .net applications independently of IIS. I'm guessing
that it'll allow making mutiple applications a lot easier than is currently
the case under IIS.
Personally I found the ability to control my machine from any place on the
planet and the ability to develop at least one application easily on my
local machine enough to warrant the £50 upgrade. I wouldnt pay any more than
that though if all you want to do is use IIS. Amazon.co.uk has an ok price
if youre a student (£63).
If you're not a student and only want to play with asp.net websites with
Visual Studio then the £160 upgrade from XP Home to XP Pro is really taking
the piss.
I could give you some more information on your server options if you could
give some more info on specifically what you would like your server for. My
suggestion would be different depending on say, whether you wanted to server
ASP as opposed to making ASP.Net applications
I hope that helps a bit
Kind Regards
Simon
