Beginning ASP.NET 3.5: In C# and VB

18.3. Running Your Site under IIS

Up until now, you've been using the built-in web server that ships with Visual Web Developer to debug and test your application. However, since requests to this server are limited to those coming from the localhost to minimize security implications, you'll need to use IIS, which comes with most major Windows versions. In order to have your web site run under IIS, you need to perform the following steps:

1. Install and configure IIS.

2. Install and configure the .NET Framework 3.5.

3. Configure security settings.

Depending on the current state of your system, some of these actions are optional. In the following sections you see how to carry out these steps.

18.3.1. Installing and Configuring the Web Server

Although IIS ships with most Windows versions, it's not installed by default, so you need to install it first. You also need to make sure that your version of Windows supports IIS. For IIS to be supported on Windows XP, you need to have Windows XP Professional, and not the Home edition. And although the Starter and Home Basic versions of Windows Vista ship with some parts of IIS, you can't run ASP.NET pages on them, so you need at least the Home Premium edition. On the server-based versions of Windows, IIS is fully supported.

To install and configure IIS on your Windows machine, you need to be logged on as an Administrator. If the account you use to log on to your machine does not have administrative privileges, you need to ask your administrator to install ...