Platinum Edition Using® Microsoft® Windows® XP

Determining Which IIS Services You Need

IIS is a sophisticated suite of programs. These applications require forethought and oversight to make them useful and to manage the security risk that comes with global accessibility.

So, to minimize the headaches and risks, you should install only the components that are necessary to run your Web site. If you only want to present Web pages, and you can access the computer locally, then you probably don't need the FTP Service and its attendant security issues. The same goes for the Indexing Service. If you are only going to present a few static Web pages and have no need to allow for a search of your Web site's files, then you don't need to install this service.

Let's look briefly at the optional services, ...