(IIS) 7 Configuration - Visual Web Developer

Question

I develop small web base ASP applications that basically store and display data from a backend MsAccess database.

The application websites are developed and tested on my local machine (the finished work eventually gets published to a company web server).

To run the development web server on my XP machine I did not load any additional software. I believe that I was running IIS 5 ? and this setup was running 100%.

I just loaded a Visual Web Developer – Express Edition to help my development and this after two hours of installation time it appears that it gave me an upgrade to my IIS (to version 7) without notifying me if I wanted to load that.

Now all the development .asp pages on my machine no longer run.

Note: the initial pages appear but anytime I hit a “submit” button I get the error:

destination page can not be found or is no longer available

Is this a IIS 7 configuration issue?

Where do I go to change the configuration ? what needs to be changed to get a .asp page to “post”?

Can I Uninstall the IIS seven and get back to the older version if IIS ?

Answer 1

on IIS7 ASP is disabled by default. you need to activate that in the IIS7 config. I belive it is an ISAPI Module.

Answer 2

Which version of Windows XP are you running? If you have anything below Proffessional, you probably got upgraded to II6 and not II7 - there is no II7 for lesser versions.

Moving on to what to do if you have II7. (I'm running Vista, but I believe these configuration tools look roughly the same).

1. Open the IIS Manager from Administration Tools (under Start/Programs)

2. Expand your web server (the node with your local computer name), then expand Sites and select the site you want to activate ASP for.

3. Under "IIS" there is a setting called "ASP". On the right hand side of the configuration tool there is a bar with labeled "Actions" - I believe you need to find the Start option under Manage Web Site.

Answer 3

IIS is part of the OS. So unless you upgrade your OS, it will remain the old version.

If you are using Windows XP 32-bit, then IIS 5.1 is there. If you are using Windows XP 64-bit, then IIS 6. is there.

One point is that Visual Web Developer is for ASP.NET development mainly. So if you are developing classic ASP, it does not help much.

If now all your classic ASP pages fails, can you test with a simple hello world page? If you can see that page without a problem, then actually IIS serves ASP without a problem.