Installing IIS

In Windows 2000 Server, IIS was part of a default installation. However, in WS03, you must install IIS manually. With Microsoft’s new mindset of “off by default,” IIS is no longer part of a default installation.

Here’s how to install IIS:

1. In the Control Panel, click Add Or Remove Programs to open the Add Or Remove Programs dialog box.

2. Click the Add/Remove Windows Components icon on the left. The Windows Components Wizard will pop up.

3. Click Application Server, and then click the Details button.

4. The IIS components are located in the Internet Information Services area.

If you click the IIS checkbox, only the default components will be installed. To install optional components (subcomponents), you must select them manually.

The IIS Subcomponents

As indicated in step 3 in the preceding section, you’ll click Details to see the subcomponents of IIS, which are shown in Figure 1-1.

Figure 1-1: Subcomponents of IIS

Choose all the subcomponents you want to install, and then click OK three times to get back to the main Windows Components screen. When you click Next, you may be prompted for the Windows 2003 CD, if it’s not already in the drive.

Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS) Server Extensions

The BITS Server Extensions contains two components: an Internet Server Application Programming Interface (ISAPI) filter to allow BITS uploads, and the server extensions snap-in.

Note 

An ISAPI filter is basically a dynamic link library (DLL) that gets first crack at incoming Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) code. ISAPI technology is covered in detail in Chapter 17.

BITS allows files to be transferred in the background so as not to interrupt any active users on a system. File transfers are throttled to limit their bandwidth use. If a file is interrupted because of a broken connection, it will continue transferring when the connection is reestablished. When the file is completely transferred, the application requesting that file is notified.

BITS is installed with Windows 2003 and Windows XP, and it is available as an add-on for Windows 2000.

Common Files

You must install this component or IIS won’t work.

File Transfer Protocol (FTP) Service

This component is not installed by default. The FTP service allows for the creation of an FTP server, where users can upload and download files.

FrontPage 2002 Server Extensions

Selecting this component installs the software necessary for users to upload their web sites to the server directly through Microsoft FrontPage or Visual InterDev. This allows web page authors a greater degree of control on your web server, and installing it can also be considered a security risk.

Internet Information Services Manager

This component installs the Microsoft Management Console (MMC) snap-in that allows you to administer IIS. Like Common Files, it’s mandatory.

Internet Printing

This component installs the options that allow you to configure and share printers over HTTP. This option is the same as the Windows 2000 Server web printing options. In WS03, it is now an optional service.

NNTP Service

This component installs the News Server, which allows the creation of newsgroups.

SMTP Service

This installs the SMTP Service, which allows the IIS server to send e-mail. It’s useful for those web sites that let visitors send e-mail.

World Wide Web Service

The World Wide Web Service is the one you’ve been looking for. It provides HTTP services and comprises several subcomponents.

Active Server Pages The Active Server Pages subcomponent installs the ASP DLL and other files that support ASP for your web server. This option is always installed, although it is disabled by default.

Internet Data Connector Internet Data Connector (IDC) allows for database connectivity in your web site. This option is always installed.

Remote Administration (HTML) Installing this option enables you to administer IIS remotely through a web browser. This is different from the previous HTML administration options for IIS, with which you could administer only the same server.

Remote Desktop Web Connection This installs the ActiveX control that allows Internet Explorer web browsers to connect to a terminal server session using the pages provided. This was available in Windows 2000 as the Terminal Services Advanced Client.

Server Side Includes This provides support for server-side includes and is always installed.

WebDAV Publishing WebDAV stands for Web-based Distributed Authoring and Versioning. It is a set of extensions to HTTP that allows users to access and manage files on WebDAV published directories on your web server. It is always installed.

World Wide Web Service This component installs the core WWW service application. Without this, many IIS components won’t function.

IIS Services

Several services run to support IIS; each is listed in the services control panel for WS03. The services that appear depend on which components of IIS are installed. If a component isn’t installed, the associated service will not appear in the services control panel.

IIS Admin Service This is the main administration service for IIS. All the other services depend on this service, so if this service is stopped, all other IIS services will stop as well.

FTP Publishing This is the service behind the FTP server component of IIS.

World Wide Web Publishing This is the service behind the web server component of IIS.

Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) This is the service behind the SMTP server component of IIS.

Network News Transfer Protocol (NNTP) This is the service behind the NNTP server component of IIS.

HTTP SSL This is the service that enables the WWW Publishing service to perform SSL (Secure Socket Layer) certificate functions. The WWW Publishing service depends on this service.

Tip 

Service dependencies allow services to be linked so that a service that needs another service won’t be started without its partner. Dependencies can be viewed in the Dependencies tab of the Properties window for a service.