How to Manage and Troubleshooting Web Server Resources

Posted: September 11th, 2008 | Author: seodude | Filed under: Troubleshooting, Web Server, technology, tips tricks, windows xp | Tags: , , , , |

Unlike Windows 2000 Server and Windows Server 2003, Windows XP Professional is designed for the desktop; therefore, Internet Information Services (IIS) is not installed by default. IIS version 5.1 ships with Windows XP Professional. You must manually install IIS by going to the Control Panel, double-clicking the Add or Remove Programs icon, and clicking the Add/Remove Windows Components button. Mark the check box for Internet Information Services (IIS). After you select Internet Information Services (IIS), you can click the Details button to add or remove selective IIS components before you proceed with the installation. Click Next to have the Windows Components Wizard install the web server resources for you. If you upgrade your computer from Windows NT 4 Workstation (or from Windows 2000 Professional) to Windows XP Professional, IIS 5.1 is installed automatically, provided that you had installed Peer Web Services (or IIS 5) on your previous version of Windows.

Before you can install IIS, your computer must have the Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) and its related connectivity utilities installed. In addition, Microsoft recommends that you have a Domain Name System (DNS) server available on your network for hostname to IP address resolution. For very small networks, you may use a HOSTS file or a LMHOSTS file in lieu of a DNS server. A HOSTS file maps DNS host computer names to IP addresses. A LMHOSTS file maps NetBIOS computer names to IP addresses. Windows XP Professional looks for these two text files in the %systemroot%\system32\drivers\etc folder. Sample HOSTS and LMHOSTS files are also installed by default into this folder.

After you have installed IIS, you manage the services from the Internet Information Services snap-in of the MMC. You can launch the IIS Console by clicking Start, (All) Programs, Administrative Tools, Internet Information Services. From the IIS Console, you can administer the default FTP site (not installed by default), default website, and the default Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) virtual server for the Windows XP Professional computer.

Additional HTML-based documentation on IIS administration is available by pointing to http://localhost/ in your web browser.

Leave a Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.