Won Yoo's Blog : vista SP2

Workaround: Running ASP.NET 1.1 on Vista SP2/WS08 SP2

wonyoo — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 22:01:00 GMT

Many of you have probably read the article on how to install ASP.NET 1.1 on IIS7 on Vista and WS08 (The article can be found at http://learn.iis.net/page.aspx/472/how-to-install-aspnet-11-with-iis7-on-vista-and-windows-2008/).

While above works great on Vista/Vista SP1/WS08 RTM, if you try to run ASP.NET 1.1 on Vista SP2/WS08 SP2, you may have experienced the following error if you are on a 64-bit OS:

There was an error while performing this operation.

Details:

Filename:
\\?\C:\Windows\system32\inetsrv\config\applicationHost.config
Error:

Here is the problem.

In order to support .NET 4.0 Framework, IIS team has released a hotfix (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/958854) which is also included in SP2. At the root of the problem is that this hotfix allows the IIS runtime to read the correct version of .NET Framework configuration based on the .NET Framework version that is associated with the application pool. For example:

.NET Framework version 1.1: the config location is %windir%\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v1.1.4322\CONFIG
.NET Framework version 2.0: the config location is %windir%\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\CONFIG
.NET Framework version 4.0: the config location is %windir%\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.nnnnn\CONFIG

The problem is that when the runtime tries to load the corresponding configuration, it doesn't take the bitness of the application pool into the consideration. As you know, ASP.NET 1.1 is only supported on 32-bit. So if you have a 64-bit OS, in order to run ASP.NET 1.1, you have to enable 32-bit applications in the application pool. So, with the QFE/SP2 on 64-bit OS (and only on 64-bit OS), the runtime is incorrectly looking for the 1.1 version of the configuration under Framework64, which does not exist.

Workaround:

Create the Framework64 directory for 1.1
md \windows\microsoft.net\framework64\v1.1.4322\config\
Copy the 32bit config to 64bit config location created in step 1.
copy \windows\microsoft.net\framework\v1.1.4322\config\machine.config \windows\microsoft.net\framework64\v1.1.4322\config\

In the spirit of full disclosure, without the hotfix/SP2, the behavior was still incorrect on Vista/Vista SP1/WS08 RTM in that the runtime was alreays reading the 2.0 configuration although the application pool is configured to use .NET 1.1. (Because the runtime was always reading the 2.0 config regardless of the .NET Framework version that is associated with the application pool. This was the bug that hotfix/SP2 tried to address as part of supporting .NET 4.0, but it didn't quite consider the fact that ASP.NET 1.1 is only available in 32-bit.) This bug in Vista/Vista SP1/WS08 RTM may not have been too obvious to those running ASP.NET 1.1 on 64-bit Vista/Vista SP1/WS08 RTM unless you have significant/specific settings/differences between 1.1 and 2.0 configurations.

Hotfix and Security Update List: Windows Server 2008 SP2 and Windows Vista SP2

wonyoo — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 21:35:00 GMT

Not sure if anyone has seen this, but yesterday, Microsoft posted the full list of all Hotfixes (QFEs) and Security updates that have been rolled into Vista SP2. The list can be downloaded from the Microsoft Download Center at http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=d8b2cf4b-a2df-4664-8dd8-e840001e33f3.

For IIS, you will want to look under the Server Technologies, although unfortunately, there isn't a way to just filter for IIS QFEs.

Vista/Windows Server 2008 Service Pack 2 (SP2) RC

wonyoo — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 22:20:00 GMT

In March, Vista/Windows Server 2008 SP2 RC was made public. (See my blog post on SP2 Beta release here).

From the IIS perspective, since the SP2 Beta release, we have been focusing on stability and reliability. So there aren't any significant functional changes that we introduced in RC. One exception is:

Specify root of a drive as the documents root.

The root of a drive (ie. d:\) can be used as the documents root.

We have had customer requests around this and we decided to enabled that in RC. (For other IIS changes in SP2, refer to the Beta blog post).

There is one behavior that I would like to note. In SP2 Beta as well as in RC, the IIS team has introduced a new identity called ApplicationPoolIdentity which can be used to run application pools. In order to keep the functional behavior the same, if you create a new site using the inetmgr, the corresponding application pool will have NETWORK SERVICE as the identity. However, you can change the process model from NETWORK SERVICE to ApplicationPoolIdentity after the application pool has been created.

Now, for some reason, let's suppose that you have decided to un-install SP2. The un-installation will complete successfully, but you may find that your IIS instance is failing to start. This may happen if you had configured any of the application pools to use ApplicationPoolIdentity. Now that SP2 is removed, there is no such identity after SP2 is un-installed.

To work around this, simply locate the following from applicationHost.config and change the process identity model to a valid one, such as NETWORK SERVICE.

Change from:

<processModel identityType="ApplicationPoolIdentity" />

To (example: NETWORK SERVICE):

<processModel identityType="NetworkService" />

The official SP2 RC site is here and you can download RC from:

ISO for Windows Server 2008 x86/x64/ia64 and Windows Vista x86/x64
x86 for Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista x86
x64 for Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista x64
IA64 for Windows Server 2008 ia64