Windows 7 ships with IIS 7, but IIS is not enabled by default. To turn on IIS 7, you need to dig into a new area of the Control Panel. One quick note—unlike past setups, when you choose a parent option, this does not automatically select all of the child options in all cases. You’re better off expanding parents and choosing the children you need.
- Go Start >> Control Panel
- Click on the green Programs header
- Under Programs and Features, click on Turn Windows features on or off
- Select Web Management Tools. This will only install the IIS Management Console. If you need to install IIS 6 management scripts, you’ll need to expand Web Management Tools then IIS 6 Management Compatibility and select the parts you need. Again, this is only for IIS 6 management scripts, not application compatibility.
- Expand the World Wide Web Services, and drill into each of the children nodes to choose the one you want.
- Finally, choose the Internet Information Services Hostable Web Core.
Keep in mind that IIS 7 is a radically different web server than IIS 6, so you have a learning curve once you get this installed. Also, not every application that runs in IIS 6 will run in IIS 7. You may become very familiar with IIS 6 compatibility modes.