ColdFusion 5 on MS Server 2008 R2 - iis

Need to see if ColdFusion 5 will run on MS Server 2008 R2.
On a client's site that has ColdFusion 5(yes 5) and wants to move it to a MS Server with 2008 R2 and IIs 7.5 on it. The one app that is on it is going away as is all ColdFusion. So they do not want to invest in an upgrade. Simply not an option for them and they have made it clear.
2008 R2 Issues: CF 5 being 32-bit doesn't install for me. Is there a way to make this happen?
IIS 7.5 I've read articles that CF 5 can be run on IIS 7.5 with compatibility mode turned on. I don't think this will be the big hurdle.
The alternative is to keep in on the server it's on but for reasons this is the last alternative.
So for the most part I am looking for advise on running CF 5 on MS Server 2008 R2.
Thank you!

I don't have Windows Server 2008 to hand, but I was able to install ColdFusion 5 on Windows 7 64-bit with very little problem, so you should just go ahead and give it a go (which is always a reasonable approach in these situations).
I have fully-documented my install experience on my blog for you (in case it's any help). It's too long to post here.

Just thinking, Scott. If the reason to not pay for an upgrade to a still-supported (and secure, and not unstable) version of ColdFusion is down to the licensing costs, have you considered Railo instead of ColdFusion? The software itself is free, but obviously you'd have to expect a bit of recoding for CFML which is no longer valid. There's not much of this, but more recent CFML implementations are - on the whole - less forgiving of dodgy code than old versions.
The benefit of taking this approach is that you'd be running software that is still maintained, and is up-to-date as far as security issues go. I think it's borderline negligent to be running outward-facing software which is so out of date, if I'm honest. Are your clients aware of the potential risks here?
Perhaps it's not an option, but maybe it is, so I thought I'd suggest it.

Related

Foswiki Installation on Win Server 2012 and IIS?

Has anyone had experience installing Foswiki on windows in the past couple of years? It unfortunately seems that all the guides are extremely old and vague.
The setup on my target machine is Windows Server 2012, Activestate Perl, and IIS 10. The machine is a company server, so I cannot change the setup or install another web server like Apache.
Sorry, I don't think that these are suitable preconditions: there are too many gotchas, too few people that ever went that route, it will cost you lots of efforts and the result will be inferior. There are two alternatives: (1) convert the machine to a Linux server or (2) grab the VM from https://foswiki.org/Download/FoswikiRelease02x01x04 with a pre-installed Foswiki ready to go.

Should "Windows Update" run automatically on a production server?

I have a web server running OS "Windows 2008 R2 - 64 bit" that hosts several websites for my clients (small companies). Since June 2013 "Windows Update" automatic updates has been turned off. I was told to turn automatic updates off as it can cause the server to crash, which would obviously affect my clients.
My concern is obviously that when I ran Windows Update today I see there are 130 important updates, most of which start with "Security Update...", others just start "Update...".
What is the best practice regarding Windows Update, and particularly turning on Automatic Updates, for a production web server?
The web server runs IIS 7 with SQL Server 2008 R2. The sites are all ASP.NET sites, some Web Forms, some Mvc.
Hopefully this isn't too generic a question. I'm obviously afraid that I might have to install these updates and risk bringing the server down.
Probably better asked on serverfault
Start with this question over there:
To update or not to update
https://serverfault.com/questions/134324/to-update-or-to-not-update

Installing add-ins for SharePoint Foundation 2010 on Developer Win 7 Pro

I'm having a lot of trouble getting SharePointRS_x64.msi to install sucessfully says it cannot find sharepoint when in fact that sharepoint is installed and running on Win 7 Pro. Because of the operating system I am unable to install the prereq package that comes with SharePoint Foundation 2010 (which includes this reporting addin).
I already have a reporting server set up for my MSSQL2008 instance(win 2008 server R2). It's working when I go to the http:\servername\Reports i'm able to launch the report builder and everything works. I'm now having trouble setting up the other end on SharePoint (different (developement) machine - running win 7 pro).
Any Help would be GREATLY appriciated.
Please let me know if what I want to do is possible.
Thanks,
Mike
I found the solution.
You need to open config file:
C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSRS10.\Reporting Services\ReportServer\rsreportserver.config
In this config find string:
Add Key="SecureConnectionLevel" Value="2"
Change value 2 to 0.
Values meaning:
3 - Most secure-Use SSL for absolutely everything.
2 - Secure-Use SSL for rendering and methods that pass credentials but don't insist on it for all SOAP calls.
1 - Basic Security-Accepts http but rejects any calls that might be involved in the passing of credentials.
0 - Least Secure-Don't use SSL at all.
You have to remember that installing sp2010 on your desktop is going to limit your farm. It is not going to be a fully functional farm. Advanced features like search and user profile sync will not work/get buggy. I guess now, you can add reporting services intergration to the list of things that don't work. Safe your self a lot of trouble but building a vm, which is going to be closer to your production environment anyway.
UPDATE
I thought it might not be supported by Foundation, but it is:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb326356.aspx

Development machine IIS version vs deployment IIS version

My development machine is running Windows XP SP2 (and IIS 5.1 by implication).
Until recently our deployment environment was based around Windows Server 2003 (and therefore IIS 6.0).
We are about to move to Windows Server 2008 (and therefore IIS 7.0) for a new project.
Our projects use ASP.NET MVC and WCF Services.
Are there any key reasons for us to upgrade our development machines to run Windows Server 2008 (or possibly Vista, since this also comes with IIS 7.0)?
I would say it's in your best interest to upgrade your development machines to emulate as much of the production environment as possible within your means and resources. Otherwise you may fall into traps you're completely unaware of just by deploying an application from your development machine to the server's environment, which may pertain to differing versions of IIS, the version of .NET framework each machine is running, or just the way the code is compiled or executed at runtime.
Especially since IIS 7 has been vastly upgraded since IIS 5.1, why shouldn't you work closer with it's current functionality while developing before you missing out on some great opportunities? To really know what to expect from an application in production, develop it under the same circumstances.
Edit/Added: This link may help you see at least one significant example of how differing versions can affect your project.
I would recommend that you develop against the same major build as you intend to deploy on. That said, this leaves you with a few options. First, you could build against your local IIS installation (as it appears you currently do). That means that all of your boxes should likely be upgraded to Windows Vista or Windows 2008 Server (or Windows 7 as it is running IIS 7.5). Your second option is to deploy to a remote machine. It is entirely possible to deploy your application to a remote test machine running IIS 7 and remotely debug as well. The problem is that if you have more than one developer working on the remote site, it becomes problematic. IIS can handle the remote debugging on different webs for different developers, but depending on your architecture and configuration, you may still be sharing resources between instances of test web applications.You could occasionally deadlock each other. The only benefit is that you don't have to buy licenses for all of your machines (and potentially upgrade hardware to support the OS upgrade). However, I think that would be short-sighted. The loss of developer productivity wouldn't be worth it, IMHO.
There are major changes between IIS 5.1 and IIS 7.x. The changes to the architecture, such as the integrated pipeline, can result in drastically different behavior and compatibility issues. I think you will find that IIS 7 far more developer-friendly. The introduction of things such as failed request tracing, extended logging, and enhanced error pages alone make it much easier to track down errors in your application. In that regard, the upgrade is well worth it.

Differences between IIS 6.0 / Windows 2003 and IIS 7.0 / Windows 2008

I am considering currently to get a VPS for some of my development test. I found some VPS at a cheap price, which suits me as it's only going to be used as a sandbox.
So far I know it is possible to install .Net 3.5 on the windows 2003 without problems, if I am correct it will be also possible to use IIS6 for all my development including asp.net mvc.
I am looking here if there is anything that would prevent me from using IIS6. I looked on google and apparently the main thing about IIS 7 is the modular design for plugins. This shouldn't be too much of a problem as most of my devs will be for personnal use.
(PHP on IIS will run fine with IIS6)
Our devs are doing all their development against Win2k3 / IIS6 servers with .NET 3.5 and have not encountered any issues that would have been fixed with IIS7. Which is probably good since I've yet to stand up a 2k8 server.
For devs, I think the main thing IIS7 adds is the integrated managed pipeline that allows you to write .NET code for IIS instead of an ISAPI filter.
Shared configs, FastCGI, caching improvements, etc. I think of more as admin features. Useful, but won't really affect your dev time.
IIS7 will provide faster services, but IIS6 should be able to do everything you need (unless you need to run PHP or something of the sort on IIS).

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