Where can I find in IIS 7.0 ?

TobinTitus — Tue, 10 Oct 2006 21:40:00 GMT

Question: Where can I find Windows Authentication in IIS 7.0?

I've seen this question or questions like this asked numerous times so I thought it would make a nice quick -- and hopefully useful -- blog post.

In previous versions of IIS, administrators were able to enable or disable features on their servers by simply checking or unchecking a box in the IIS management console. However, when an administrator unchecked a feature in IIS, the feature still existed on the machine and was even loaded. Unchecking a box allowed the administrator to disable a feature -- but it didn't physically remove anything from the machine.

This all changes with IIS 7.0. Currently, when you install IIS 7.0 on Windows Vista (or Longhorn server for that matter), you must select the features that you want installed. Each feature in IIS 7.0 is componentized into its own module library. The features you select at installation, and ONLY the features you select, will be copied to disk under the "%windir%\system32\inetsrv\" directory. If you do not install the feature, it simply won't exist on your machine. This obviously makes the server more robust and performant at the sime time -- providing a high amount of customization as well as security.

Another thing to note is that once a feature module has been installed to the proper directory, it must also be added to the IIS configuration system. For more information on how to install and uninstall modules, see: Getting Started with Modules.

If you are having a hard time getting WindowsAuthentication, DynamicCompression, or some other feature of IIS to work. A good place to start looking is your installation. Make sure you've installed the features you need for your purposes.

Tobin Titus Blog : Componentization

Where can I find in IIS 7.0 ?