Installing IIS and ASP.NET – installing things so you can get your website up and running

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I have gotten a lot of issues of tinkering with IIS solved before – but never have I written anything down and I have never installed it from scratch. Now, I have to do these steps again so this time I will write them down for myself and others. I will not be using the default website.  I am doing so on Windows 7. Note that this is on the Intranet – so security is NOT my main focus although it is on my mind while setting it up but I am not going to be crazy on that in this discussion – just mention a few thing here or there that you might want to think about. This is where I started from a tutorial standpoint – but I am going back to this once I am done. There is a great MS tutorial in the 1st link in the install section below.

UPDATE: This little step of registering IIS (aspnet_regiis.exe -I) after install has gotten me SOOO many times. ALWAYS do this – see this link.

Install MS Visual Studio Express 2012 for Web

  • download from Microsoft and follow the instructions
  • http://www.asp.net/web-forms – great tutorial site too
  • register it, MS says its free but you have to register – ok – no issues
  • you will require a reboot

Install IIS

  • Go to your Control Panel->Programs and Features
  • on the left, click “Turn Windows features on or off”
  • expand the Internet Information Services (IIS) and hunt/enable these items
    • FTP Service
    • IIS Management Service – so I won’t have to get up and go to my computer to make changes
    • .Net Extensibility
    • ASP.NET
    • ISAPI Extensions
    • ISAPI Filters
    • HTTP Errors
    • Directory Browsing … you might want to turn this off
    • Default Document (means you have to have Default.aspx, index.htm, index.html and it will magically find them first if they exist
    • URL Authentication (optional)
    • Basic Authentication (optional)
    • Request Filtering
    • Windows Authentication (cause I am lazy and don’t want to set up special user tables etc and all the other tools use Windows logins/passwords – keeps things simple)
    • Click OK a few times to exit the screens and close Control Panel
    • Go to http://your_computer_name and you should see the IIS start screen
      • Put your computer’s name as the host
          • where is this name? right mouse click on Start->Computer and choose properties
          • scroll to the bottom to see your computer name
  • This little step of registering IIS (aspnet_regiis.exe -I) after install has gotten me SOOO many times. ALWAYS do this – see this link.

Initialize your website / space

  • make a folder somewhere on your computer like c:\iis_websites
  • Start the Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager by clicking on start and typing IIS – then click on the shortcut that bubbles to the top
  • On the left, right mouse click on Sites and choose Add Website
  • Fill in the details – you can leave port 80 – but then you have to change the default site’s port to something else like 81. The directory to choose is the one you just made. Put your computer’s name as the host.
    • where is this name? right mouse click on Start->Computer and choose properties
    • scroll to the bottom to see your computer name
  • Click OK
  • Right mouse click on Sites->Default Web Site and choose Edit Bindings
  • change the port to 81
  • Click OK
  • Put a file in your new website called index.htm using Notepad and put “Hello” in it.
  • Go to http://your_computer_name and you should see the IIS start screen
    • Put your computer’s name as the host
      • where is this name? right mouse click on Start->Computer and choose properties
      • scroll to the bottom to see your computer name

Make you first website

  • start up MS Visual Studio
  • Choose File->New Website.
  • Choose ASP.Net Web Forms Site
  • Click Build Publish Website
    • make a new profile – I chose the file method cause its is much easier
    • Click Publish
  • Go to http://your_computer_name and you should see the new project. I saw errors – so I will keep typing
    • Put your computer’s name as the host
      • where is this name? right mouse click on Start->Computer and choose properties
      • scroll to the bottom to see your computer name