How to Install Internet Information Services (IIS 7) on Windows 7

If you want to install Microsoft Internet Information Server (IIS 7) on your new Windows 7 computer first time after working with IIS 6 for long years, I believe you will be surprised with the improvements and changes both in IIS and IIS installation process.

Information services is not now using the internet information server for IIS. In this short guide I will summarize the steps of installing IIS 7 on Windows 7 in the way I had recently on my Windows 7 Ultimate Laptop.

IIS Installation

IIS 7 can be installed and features of IIS 7 can be added or removed by Windows 7 “Control Panel > Programs” management screen. You can add and install Windows 7 components and build in applications using the “Turn Windows features on or off” link.

When the Windows Features screen opens and generates in a short time a list of Windows 7 features installed and configured on the current system and a list of Windows 7 features not installed yet.
When the list is completed drill down the Internet Information Services node.

Internet Information Services – IIS 7 World Wide Web Features

Application Development Features

Security

Common HTTP Features

Health and Diagnostics

Performance Features

In the IIS 7 Performance Features section there exists compression functions for static content and dynamic content. You can choose any compression feature.

Internet Information Services – IIS 7 Web Management Tools

After you select all the necessary components, tools and features required for you click on OK button to start installing IIS 7 on Windows 7.You will have wait for a few minutes while Windows 7 is installing IIS 7 and changing IIS 7 features.

After the Internet Information Services – IIS 7 installation is completed you can browse to the http://localhost in order to see if your IIS7 is installed and start running on your Windows 7 computer.
If IIS7 (Internet Information Services) is up and running the following static web page will be displayed on your browser.

You can open the Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager console by following the below path.

Open “Control Panel > System and Security > Administrative Tools” then click on Internet Information Services (IIS 7) Manager icon to open the IIS 7 management console.

Here is the Windows7 Ultimate IIS 7 about section.

Enjoy! 🙂

Device Drivers in Windows 7

DriverStore is a new and a central location in Windows Vista and Windows 7 where all the driver files will be stored., before they are copied to their final destination during the device driver installation.

The location of the driver store is – C:\Windows\System32\DriverStore

Driver files are stored in folders, which are located inside the FileRepository folder as shown in the image below.

For eg: the driver package developed by Microsoft that contains the core mouse support files is present in the following folder.

C:\Windows\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\msmouse.inf_amd64_neutral_6f653f6716c1448c

Within this folder are the driver files (.sys), driver setup files (.inf), pre-compiled INF files(.pnf), and an XML manifest file that contains the manifest of all the files within the driver package. Together, all of these different files add up to the driver package, which contains all the files needed to install the device. To protect these files, the NTFS permissions on the driver store and its sub-folders and files is full control for the local system account and Read& Execute for the Everyone built in identity.

Earlier in Windows XP and 2000, the driver source files neeeded for installing the devices were typically found in several locations.

* %SystemRoot%\Driver Cache\i386\drivers.cab
* %SystemRoot%\Driver Cache\i386\service_pack.cab
* .inf files under %windir%inf
* .sys files under %SystemRoot%\System32\Drivers
* Support DLLs under %SystemRoot%\System32
* Third Party co-installers in various locations.

Advantages of maintaining a central store:

1. Allows for potentially faster device installation and more realiable driver rollback and is a single standard for un-installing drivers.
2. Allows you to protect drivers by using the Windows Resource Protection(WRP).
3. Uses index files to minimize the performance impact on installing devices when the driver store grows in size as a result of new package additions.

Enjoy! 😀

After XP Mode, Here Comes God Mode!

What is God Mode? This is an secret Windows 7 Feature (If you can call so!!), which provides you an extended control panel to control your machine. Here are the Steps to invoke the God Mode:

Create a new folder (right-click and click on “New Folder”). Right-click on the folder and click on rename, copy and paste this:
GodMode.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}

This folder will now be a shortcut to the Windows 7 godmode. The godmode allows you to quickly access many Windows 7 functions via a GUI.

Enjoy! 🙂

Problem Step Recorder

Sometimes when a user has an issue with his machine which needs an IT Pro help, the helpdesk always tries to resolve this error quickly, either involves in sending someone to the user’s desk or remote connection to the user’s machine to fix it.  When the user is not in office, its even harder to troubleshoot.

Most of the times, the user description of the problem may not be specific enough., and the support team may need some additional information from the user to understand the issue better.  It would be easy to understand the problem, if they could see what happened.  Thats where exactly, the Problem Step Recorder comes handy!

The problem Step recorder in Windows 7 lets the user save the steps which caused the issue, with the complete screenshots on what happened, along with the compiled html file. The user can then send this html file to the helpdesk and ease them understand the problem better.  The order of screenshots may help the helpdesk to identiy the issue more faster.

Other than Issue reporting, you can use this tool to create screencasts. Also, it proves really handy to create how-to tutorials and documents!!!

Invoking the Problem Step Recorder(psr) is as easy as typing psr (or to be in specific psr.exe) in the search bar, and hit the enter button.

The program starts with this below options,

On clicking the “Start Record” button, the program will start recording all the subsequent windows, key presses and mouse clicks. Now launch the program which is creating an issue. Observe that, the PSR shows the recording now in the status message in the dialog header.

Once you get the issues in the program, which you wanted to report… you can click on the Stop Record button. This will give you an option to save the report file.

Now in the saved file, you will get the step-by-step actions you have performed, wherever you have clicked.

ENjoy! 🙂

Install Win 7 from USB device

If your’s operating system has stopped booting and you are facing a black screen at startup then you can install the windows 7 os from your pendrive itself.

Download the windows 7 usb dvd tool from here.

Steps to Perform:

1) Give the path of the ISO image file of Windows 7 .

2) Start the process. It will format your pendrive first and will make your pendrive bootable with windows 7.

3) Then insert the pendrive before the boot starts and your windows 7 setup will start.

🙂