Professional ASP.NET 3.5 SP1 Edition: In C# and VB

Chapter 11. IIS7

Internet Information Services 7.0 (IIS7) is the latest version of Microsoft's Web Server. IIS7 has gone through significant architectural changes since the last version. The most notable change for ASP.NET developers is the deep integration of IIS7 and the ASP.NET Framework. This provides both ASP.NET developers and IIS7 administrators with an integrated programming environment that allows them to implement features and functionalities that were not possible before. This chapter will provide you with an overview of the IIS7 and ASP.NET integrated architecture and its constituent components, show you how to install, setup, and configure IIS7, as well as show you how to migrate your existing applications to IIS7.

Modular Architecture of IIS7

The main goal of the Microsoft IIS team for IIS 6.0 was to improve its security, performance, and reliability. For that reason, modularity and extensibility didn't make it to the list of top priorities. That said, IIS 6.0 introduced a very important notion: selective disabling of features such as ISAPI extensions and standard CGI (Common Gateway Interface) components. One of the main problems with the earlier versions of IIS was that every feature had to be installed and enabled. There were no ways to disable specific features not needed by your application scenario.

IIS 6.0 enables only static file serving by default on a clean install of the Web server. In other words, dynamic features such as ISAPI extensions and CGI components ...