Application Compatibility: IIS7

  • Article

IIS7

Feature Impact

High

Brief Description

Internet Information Server 7.0 (IIS7) provides a revolutionary way to develop and manage Web applications. It introduces granular controls over the various components, reduces administrative costs, provides better security, and simplifies development.

IIS7 also enhances features from the older versions in various ways. The following list contains some of the changes that could impact compatibility for applications developed for IIS6 or older versions:

  • IIS is componentized, and setup is granular; not all components are installed by default (for example, NTLM is not installed by default)

  • Buffering files to memory is on by default

  • ISAPI changes

  • Metabase changes (backup and restore, import and export)

  • MMC snap-in extensions will not work

  • IIS reset does not stop W3SVC; starting W3SVC does not start IISAdmin

  • Aspnet_regiis.exe has undergone significant changes

Deprecated Components in IIS7

The following IIS features have been retired and will not be available in IIS7:

  • IIS5.0 Isolation Mode

  • Metabase account recreation (checker code)

  • Sub-authentication (password synchronization and old digest authentication)

  • Built-in Passport support

  • Convlog.exe

  • Clustering UI support

  • IISRESET –reboot option

  • IIS Shell Extension

  • NNTP

  • ASP content rotator and nextlink

  • Server-side image maps

  • Internet Data Connector (HTTPODBC.DLL)

  • URL Content Rating UI

  • Authorization ISAPI

  • Password change code

  • IIS*.vbs command-line tools in %windir%\system32

  • WebDAV

  • Front Page Server Extensions

Manifestation

  • Sites using missing components might fail to run.

  • Sites using deprecated components will not run without modification.

  • Management tools and methods dependent upon the deprecated IIS metabase will break.

  • Cycling the W3SVC alone might not resolve problems as it did in earlier versions.

Remedies

Review installed IIS features and enable those that are required to enable proper functionality. IIS7 breaks up the Web server into a lightweight server core and more than 40 feature modules that can be plugged into this core. These modules—such as StaticFileModule, which allows downloads of static Web content, or WindowsAuthModule, which supports integrated NTLM authentication—can be independently installed on the server to provide the exact functionality you need.

Bb756981.IISWinsowsFeatures(en-us,MSDN.10).jpg

IIS7 features a new delegated configuration system based on a hierarchy of distributed XML configuration files. These files provide a portable method of configuration management that allows the side-by-side storage of IIS and ASP.NET configuration, using clean and strongly structured XML directives.

Cycling of all IIS7 related services might be necessary to provide the reset functionality from earlier versions. Each service should be checked when restarted to confirm the restart.

Internet Information Services 7.0 at IIS.net

IIS7 Virtual Labs

Explore the Web Server for Windows Vista and Beyond

See Also

Concepts

Application Compatibility