General availability of Windows 7 & Windows Server 2008 R2, with IIS 7.5

As of today, Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 is generally available for purchase. This latest release of the Windows operating system contains IIS 7.5, which provides a set of enhancements and new functionality on top of the IIS 7 Web server platform.

Windows 7/Windows Server 2008 R2 also marks the first release of a Windows operating system release that includes Web extensions built and refined in our rapid innovation model. See the IIS Web Extension library for the new functionality which ranges from an application request load balancer/proxy to URL rewriting to a deployment platform for Web applications and server.

If you are an administrator looking for a simplified but powerful management experience, IIS 7.5 brings you:

• built-in, brand new FTP server and WebDav support that we initially shipped as Web extensions, revised with customer feedback and added to IIS in the Windows operating system
• new management console support for administering request filtering rules, FastCGI settings, and ASP.NET settings, part of an Administration Pack that we initially released as a Web download that also includes…
• a rich IIS configuration editor built-into the management console to simplify configuration management and generate administration scripts for automated configuration management
• integration with Windows Server 2008 R2’s new Best Practice Analyzer with IIS-specific best practice rules
• a Windows PowerShell snap-in for IIS, with a library of task-based and lower-level commandlets for IIS administration – shipped first as a Web download and now incorporated into the IIS server in the operating system.
• quality enhancements -- otherwise known as bug fixes :-) 
• config tracing so you can audit changes to the IIS configuration system
• application “pre-load” where you can decrease the response time for first requests to an application by pre-loading worker processes, using a Web extension called Application Warm-Up.

If you are a developer wanting to understand the implications of targeting an IIS 7.5 server, consider:

• the Server Core installation option in Windows Server 2008 R2’s new support for applications built with the .NET framework 2.0, 3.0, 3.5.1, and 4.0. Your ASP.NET applications can run on the reduced footprint of Server Core installation option
• implement IIS trace calls in PHP code, which is hosted via our FastCGI support, so you can used IIS request tracing for diagnostics.
• Hostable Web Core, which you can use if you want host IIS in your own process without the full IIS server.
• new delegation support for custom errors so that server administrators can give you control over custom error development for your site or app
• the change we made to switch the default identity of the IIS app pool from Network Service to Application Pool. This change, driven by our commitment to providing the most secure Web server on the planet, has some implications for developers using SQL Server Express; see here for more information in a KB.
• built-in support for .Net 4.0 for your ASP.NET applications

We hope you enjoy this release! We are hard at work now on adding new functionality to the IIS Web extension library for you to download onto Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 R2. Stay tuned for more free, fully supported downloads from the IIS server team that you can use to extend the functionality of IIS 7 and IIS 7.5.