It seems that in IIS 7 (7.5, Windows Server 2008 R2) the SMTP virtual server is a second-class citizen, only being configurable through the IIS 6.0 compatibility-mode management tool. This arrangement leads me to wonder whether the SMTP virtual server is deprecated, or otherwise "on it's way out".
Is this accurate? Is the SMTP virtual server shipped with IIS being phased out? Is there a replacement on its way in?
TL;DR from here: Yes, it's gone. You can install IIS 6 SMTP server, but it sucks. Far better to use something like hMailServer which is free and works great.
It is recently that Microsoft started to add explicit notes to its documentation around IIS 6 SMTP service in recent Windows releases (IIS 8 and above) that deprecating this component for good,
The IIS SMTP Virtual Server Component that is mentioned in this article is part of IIS 6.0, the support for which has ended with the support of Windows Server 2003. To relay emails to Office 365, use one of the supported versions of Exchange Server.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/iis/application-frameworks/install-and-configure-php-on-iis/configure-smtp-e-mail-in-iis-7-and-above#note
So literally speaking, you shouldn't use SMTP service after July 14, 2015 (end of life date for Windows Server 2003).
Related
Does anyone have an idea if it is possible to downgrade IIS version 7 to lower version of IIS on windows server 2008?
I have an ASP program on win 2000 server and I am planning to migrate this program on new setup on better hardware and software but I am getting HTTP 500 which in detail error logs I see complain of classic asp and IIS 7. In my case obviously the the ASP used (by another programmer) is and old classic ASP platform and now with this conflict I cannot get my web sever operating properly.
Any help/idea would be really appreciated.
Thanks,
Alan
Azure service configuration allows to alter osFamily. Currently there're two options. Value 1 (the default) selects Windows Server 2008 and value 2 selected Windows Server 2008 R2.
I'm currently with the default (2008).
What changes should I expect if I just change to R2? Will it be faster? Will anything likely break?
You should see this as if you were upgrading from Windows Vista to Windows 7, as described in this question: What's the difference between Windows Server 2008, 2008 SP2 and 2008 R2?.
If you're building web applications the largest impact will probably come from IIS. Windows Server 2008 uses IIS 7.0, Windows Server 2008 R2 uses 7.5. Read about the differences here: What's New in the Web Server (IIS) Role (IIS 7)
There's also a whitepaper that describes the new and changed functionalities and features: Changes in Functionality in Windows Server 2008 R2.
To answer your question if anything will break I would say no (although something could always go wrong). I've deployed many applications to Windows Azure and this never caused issues for me. When I upgraded from Windows Vista to Windows 7 it felt like I was using a more mature, stable and better performing system, and I would dare to believe the same applies to the server releases. And advantage is that you'll have new features available, like the Win32 support to mount VHD files (I think this relates to your VHD question).
I am new to the world of IIS and I wanted to know the following...
I have heard about IIS Express. I run Windows 7 Ultimate and have installed the IIS that comes packaged with Windows 7.
As a developer, is there any major benefit for me if I install IIS Express over the default IIS that comes with Windows 7 for .Net Web projects?
Here are the differences from http://www.mywindowsclub.com/resources/3302-Key-differences-between-IIS-IIS-Developer.aspx.
If you already have IIS installed - its a better product. IIS express would only be used by people who don't have access to IIS or want something that is lighter than IIS but more like IIS than Cassini.
Integrated with OS
IIS 7 ships with the operating system and is tightly integrated to Windows.
IIS developer express is a separate downloadable tool
Targetted users
IIS 7 is for both developers as well as for production purposes.
IIS developer express can be used only for development purposes and not for production.
Supported Windows editions
IIS 7 will work only on Windows Vista and newer editions of Windows. In case of server OS, IIS 7 will work only on Windows 2008.
IIS developer edition will work even on older version - starting from Windows XP and newer.
Process model and activation
In IIS 7, the worker thread is automatically launched and managed by Windows Process Activation Service.
In case of IIS Express, user has to handle this.
FTP support
IIS developer express does not support FTP while IIS 7 supports it.
WCF support
IIS Developer express supports only WCF over HTTP.
IIS 7 supports WCF including over TCP, Named Pipes, and MSMQ.
Multi developer support
IIS 7 is a single user application.
IIS Developer express supports multi developer environment. Configuration files, settings, and Web content are maintained on a per-user basis.
Visual Studio integration
All editions and versions of Visual Studio have built-in support for IIS 7.
Only VS 2010 and future versions will have built-in support for IIS developer express.
Runtime extensions
IIS developer has support for URL Rewrite and FastCGI.
Webmatrix offers support for SEO, database management and Web Deployment. Other extensions that are offered with IIS are not yet tested with IIS Developer express.
Management Tools
IIS 7 is managed using the IIS Manager.
IIS Developer express can be managed using Webmatrix. Also, the express edition has support through system tray.
Port used by IIS
The default website comes with IIS 7 listens to port 80.
The default website part of IIS developer express listens to port 8080 to avoid conflicts with IIS 7 when they are running side by side.
From Scott Gu's post on IIS Express:
Why Not IIS
The downside with using the IIS option today, though, is that some
companies don’t allow full web-servers to be installed on developer
machines. IIS also requires administrator account access to setup and
debug projects. Different versions of Windows also support different
versions of IIS. For example, if you are running on Windows XP you
have to use the IIS 5.1 web-server that comes with it – which doesn’t
support all the new features of IIS 7.x. Configuring a web project
within VS to use IIS also requires some extra installation and
configuration steps.
Why IIS Express
It’s lightweight and easy to install (less than 10Mb download and a
super quick install) It does not require an administrator account to
run/debug applications from Visual Studio It enables a full web-server
feature set – including SSL, URL Rewrite, Media Support, and all other
IIS 7.x modules It supports and enables the same extensibility model
and web.config file settings that IIS 7.x support It can be installed
side-by-side with the full IIS web server as well as the ASP.NET
Development Server (they do not conflict at all) It works on Windows
XP and higher operating systems – giving you a full IIS 7.x developer
feature-set on all OS platforms IIS Express (like the ASP.NET
Development Server) can be quickly launched to run a site from a
directory on disk. It does not require any registration/configuration
steps. This makes it really easy to launch and run for development
scenarios.
After a couple of hours i found one significant reason to use Express over Local IIS : "Edit and Continue" does not work on local IIS.
I need help. I wrote simple sink by sample in http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms998610.aspx. On IIS Smtp Windows server 2003 it work fine. But on IIS Smtp Windows Server 2008 or 2008R2 it don't work. I try other sample from Internet. None of them don't work on IIS Smtp Windows Server 2008 / 2008R2. Any idea?
Windows Server 2008 has a newer version of IIS that has full integration with ASP.NET. This is the default mode. You can switch back to the older (ASAPI ASP.NET) by changing the application pool in IIS from "default" to "classic". That should make your app run like it does in Server 2003.
Without seeing more code and details, that's the only thing I can suggest.
I'm using IIS 5.1 in Windows XP on my development computer. I'm going to set up HTTPS on my company's web server, but I want to try doing it locally before doing it on a production system.
But when I go into the Directory Security tab of my web site's configuration section, the "Secure communication" groupbox is disabled. Is there something I need to do to make this groupbox enabled?
That is because IIS 5.1 under the limited Windows XP version is limited to only HTTP. You need to have a full version of IIS 6.0 on Windows 2003 to do this. Luckily you can download a VHD image of Windows 2003 from Microsoft and run it under a Virtual PC instance. Plus I would recommend this since you are trying to be careful and use a machine close to your production environment. IIS 5.1 version is never deployed as a production machine so you cannot guarantee anything and the differences between IIS 5.1 and IIS 6.0 are significant enough where the VM is worth your while.
You may need to manually create a certificate first (on WinXP there does not seem to be a built-in mechanism, so you need to use OpenSSL). Check out these two links:
Enabling SSL in IIS on Windows XP Professional
Enabling SSL (HTTPS) for IIS in Windows XP