So what are the thoughts on IIS7?  I have only been going with it for a couple of days, and while it was tricky to get my brain around at first (maybe I tried it first thing in the morning) it is winning me over... It seems the developers are excited.   One of things I am becoming increasingly excited over is the tight integration ASP.NET and IIS7 have together (here is a great blog post by an IIS team member).  Anyone who has ever tried to get IIS and .NET to talk to each other after they have had an argument will appreciate this.

For some evaluating the web interface, they may be doing so on a Vista machine (which runs IIS7)... If you have tried this already, you may have run into a problem using the Web Administration utility when attempting to set the virtual directory.  With an out of the box installation of Windows, a couple more things are required to use the Web Administration utility.

First of all, you will need to ensure the IIS6 compatibility options are installed as part of the IIS installation.  To do this, open up the ‘Programs and Features’ section of the control panel, then follow the link on the left ‘Turn Windows features on or off,’ then expand the section ‘Internet Information Services’ --> ‘Web Management Tools’ and check the options under ‘IIS6 Management Compatibility.’  This will allow the Web Administration utility to query the IIS configuration as a metabase – allowing access to information regarding virtual directories on the computer.  This will only need to be done once on the Web server.

Once this is installed, the other step you need to take is simply run the Web Administration utility in Administrator mode.  By default, programs don’t necessarily run in the context of the administrator in Vista (even if you are logged in with Administrator privileges) so you need to tell it to run as an Administrator, allowing it to access the IIS information in the form of a metabase.  This will need to be done each time you use the Web Administration utility.

After you have followed both these steps, you should be able to successfully set the Web application path.

Why the changes?  Well, to assist you in setting the virtual directory, the Web Administration utility now enumerates the virtual directories set up on the machine, making it far easier to set the path for the Web interface, and further ensuring the virtual directory is set up before attempting to go any further.

We hope this change has made things a little easier for you!