Why you need Vista Business / Ultimate for IIS 7?
I talked about Vista SKUs and IIS 7 before :) yet it wasn't that clear as of why you might want to pick up Vista Business or Ultimate to experience the full IIS 7. Yes, we do have IIS 7 features matrix over at IIS.net, yet I think that's a bit messy :p and hard to read.
Why you should get Business or Ultimate editions? simply because these are the only 2 SKUs that give you complete IIS feature sets. To verify against the matrix published on IIS.net, I fired up my VMware Server and install all SKUs - starter,home basic, home premium, business on my Vista Ultimate x64 :) each of the installations took about 30mins or so, then I look at the each of the 'Turn Windows on or off' program list, here's what I got:
|
|
|
|
Starter / Basic |
Premium |
Business / Ultimate |
| Internet Information Services |
|
|
|
|
FTP Publishing Services |
|
|
|
|
|
FTP Management Console |
|
|
Y |
|
|
FTP Server |
|
|
Y |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Web Management Tools |
|
|
|
|
|
IIS 6 Management Compatibility |
|
|
|
|
|
|
IIS 6 Management Console |
|
Y |
Y |
|
|
|
IIS 6 Scripting Tools |
|
Y |
Y |
|
|
|
IIS 6 WMI Compatibility |
|
Y |
Y |
|
|
|
IIS Metabase and IIS 6 configuration compatibility |
Y |
Y |
Y |
|
|
IIS Management Console |
|
Y |
Y |
|
|
IIS Management Scripts and Tools |
Y |
Y |
Y |
|
|
IIS Management Services |
|
Y |
Y |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
World Wide Web Services |
|
|
|
|
|
Application Development Features |
|
|
|
|
|
|
.Net Extensibility |
Y |
Y |
Y |
|
|
|
ASP |
|
Y |
Y |
|
|
|
ASP.NET |
|
Y |
Y |
|
|
|
CGI |
|
Y |
Y |
|
|
|
ISAPI Extensions |
|
Y |
Y |
|
|
|
ISAPI Filters |
|
Y |
Y |
|
|
|
Server-Side Includes |
|
Y |
Y |
|
|
Common Http Features |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Default Document |
|
Y |
Y |
|
|
|
Directory Browsing |
|
Y |
Y |
|
|
|
HTTP Errors |
Y |
Y |
Y |
|
|
|
HTTP Redirection |
Y |
Y |
Y |
|
|
|
Static Content |
|
Y |
Y |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Health and Diagnostics |
|
|
|
|
|
Custom Logging |
|
Y |
Y |
|
|
HTTP Logging |
Y |
Y |
Y |
|
|
Logging Tools |
Y |
Y |
Y |
|
|
ODBC Logging |
|
|
Y |
|
|
Request Monitor |
Y |
Y |
Y |
|
|
Tracing |
Y |
Y |
Y |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Performance Features |
|
|
|
|
|
HTTP Compression Dynamic |
Y |
Y |
Y |
|
|
Static Content Compression |
|
Y |
Y |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Security |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Basic Authentication |
|
Y |
Y |
|
|
Client Certificate Mapping Authentication |
|
|
Y |
|
|
Digest Authentication |
|
|
Y |
|
|
IIS Client Certificate Mapping Authentication |
|
|
Y |
|
|
IP Security |
Y |
Y |
Y |
|
|
Request Filtering |
Y |
Y |
Y |
|
|
URL Authorization |
Y |
Y |
Y |
|
|
Windows Authentication |
|
|
Y |
Red - Exclusively for Vista Business and Ultimate
Cyan - Default features included in all SKUs
So it is pretty clear that Starter and Home Basic are indeed very limited, you don't even get Static Content module with it :) You basically need to extend the web core at your own effort. It has only 13 modules shipped with the OS. Next - Home Premium, few modules are missing such as FTP and advanced authentication schemes like Digest and Windows. I know Business and Ultimate are more $$$ than the lower SKUs, but if you really plan to develop on IIS7, you should pick up either Business or Ultimate edition.
Next, talk about FTP - not sure if this is still NDA :) but heck! you guys will love this. There will be an out-of-band FTP component on IIS.net which will replaced the old IIS 6 FTP that you get with today's Vista. Completely rewrite with FTPS support, enhanced ftp user isolation, ftp site host name support and lot more.