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What are the different versions of IIS and where do I get them from?
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Microsoft Internet Information Server, or IIS, has always been a very capable web server. Different versions of IIS have been made available and the different versions generally introduce some significant new features. Below is a list of the significant releases of IIS to date with a brief description of new features introduced with that version.
IIS3
Windows NT 4.0 |
This is the first major release of IIS. Supported serving static HTML pages and introduced an easy to use dynamic generation of database information using simple templates.
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IIS4
Windows NT 4.0 Server
with Option Pack 1 |
This release of IIS introduced ASP, or Active Server Pages. ASP introduced a high performance platform for creating advanced interactive dynamic content and applications on a web server.
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IIS5
Windows 2000 Server |
The first shipping version of IIS to include Windows Scripting Host v5.x. This version of the Microsoft Scripting Engine introduced significant new enhancements making more advanced programming techniques much easier to accomplish with ASP. It also brought significant enhancements in performance. The CDOSYS component for interfacing to the Microsoft SMTP service is introduced.
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IIS5.1
Windows XP Professional |
This was an interim release of IIS between the release of Windows 2000 Server and Windows 2003 Server. It was only released on Windows XP Professional and as such, was only suitable for development and testing. However, it introduced some of the new features that were being prepared for the forthcoming IIS6 in Windows 2003 Server, such as the improved Metabase maintenance and storage. The CDONTS component for communicating with the Microsoft SMTP services is dropped in favor of CDOSYS.
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IIS6
Windows 2003 Server |
The first version of IIS to natively provide support of the Microsoft .NET framework. Also has gone by the name of ASP+. Retains 100% compatibility with existing ASP applications, also referred to as "Classic ASP".
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IIS7
Windows 2008 Server |
This version of IIS was made more modular to allow for more refined installation of specific features and better access to these modules by developers. More powerful deployment tools and interfaces and more extensive support and drastically improved performance for platforms such as PHP running on IIS.
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Notes: While IIS is primarily meant to be a component of Windows Server, there are versions that run on other Microsoft Windows versions. Previous to Windows 2000, there was a product called PWS, or Personal Web Server. This was available on Windows NT 4.0 Workstation for development purposes. While it did allow you to test and develop ASP web server code, it had a myriad of other limitations that always got in the way of just getting things done efficiently. Thankfully, it was finally replaced in Windows 2000 Professional with a complete, but performance limited version of IIS. The versions of IIS that have been released on Microsoft's non-Server based operating systems, have basically been identical to their server based counterparts, but have performance limiting features embedded in them. The performance limiting features ensure that the version of IIS in Windows 2000/XP Professional are used solely for development and testing purposes only and cannot be used for a live production web site. Otherwise they basically operate identical to the versions of IIS found in Windows Server and are perfect for web site development and testing purposes.
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