Microsoft® Office SharePoint® Designer 2007 Bible

2.1. Exploring the Basics of Internet Information Services

Internet Information Services (IIS) is Microsoft's premier Web server offering. As a product, it's available with almost all professional and enterprise versions of Microsoft's Windows operating system (OS). Table 2.1 lists the versions of IIS available with the various Windows OS versions.

Table 2.1. Versions of IIS Available with Different Windows Versions

Windows (OS) Version	Available IIS Version
Windows 2000	IIS 5.0
Windows XP Professional Edition	IIS 5.1
Windows Server 2003 Family (Windows 2003 Web, Standard, Datacenter, and Enterprise editions)	IIS 6.0 (which can also be run in IIS 5.0 isolation mode)
Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008	IIS 7.0

Throughout this section, I discuss the concepts, settings, and configuration of IIS 6.0. Although at the time of this writing IIS 7.0 was available for use as a Web server, it was not heavily deployed, and most organizations were still developing strategies for possible upgrades and migration. I use IIS 6.0 as the Web server platform for this book simply because of its wide acceptance, its success, and its ability to host SharePoint environments. Also, while I discuss the most important concepts for IIS 6.0 (which help you understand SharePoint Designer components and features better), a detailed discussion of IIS 6.0 architecture and functionality is beyond the scope of this text.

The IIS 6.0 release for the Windows 2003 server family of operating systems is by far the most reliable, ...