Basics of IISExpress

Introduction

• We have the following two types of development servers for building, deploying and testing ASP.NET web applications:
  
  
  • The ASP.NET Development Server that comes with Visual Studio
  • The IIS Web Server that comes with Windows
   
• IIS Express has features of both of the servers mentioned above so now it is easier to build and run ASP.NET sites and applications.
• IIS Express is the default web server for web application projects in Visual Studio 2012 and Visual Studio 2013.
• IIS Express works on Windows XP and higher operating systems
• IISExpress provides the IIS 7.x developer feature-set.
• IISExpress works on all operating sytems.
• IISExpress does not require an admin account to debug/run applications using the developement IDE.
• IISExpress can be installed along with the IIS webserver and ASP.NET development server without any issues.
• IIS Express is derived from IIS 7 and above and supports the core features of IIS.
  
  
  

Path of IISExpress

IISExpress can be found in systems at the following path:

USERS\devesho\My Documents\IISExpress



Content of IISExpress folder

An important folder is Config with the following:

• Applicationhost.config
• Aspnet.config
• Redirection.config

Applicationhost.config file

The Applicationhost.config file is the heart of IISExpress. It can be found at the location specified above.
To understand the applicationhost.config file let’s create a sample web application.

Sample Application

• A sample application has the name TestIISEXPRESS
  
  
   
• After creating a sample application in the step above, the path of the virtual directory will be created on applicationhost.config.
  
  The corresponding Virtual directory at applicationhost.config:
  
  
  
   
• Setting IISExpress from Project properties.
  
  We can set IISExpress as a default server using project properties.
  We can choose a Radio Button as shown in the screen below.
  For VS2012 this is the default setting.
  
  
   
• IISExpress on right tray
  
  After setting IISExpress as a default server and running the application using F5, we would find the following in the right tray of the system.
  
  
   
• After clicking on "Show All Applications":
  
   
• Project setting using F4:
  
  
  
   
• Let’s change the settings for Managed Pipeline Mode from “ Integrated “ to “classic” as in the following:
  
  
   
• Corresponding changes automatically occur in the applicationhost.config. file as in the following:
  
  
  

More details of applicationhost.config file

• Default document setting:
  
  
   
• Managing Application pool
  
  
   
• Setting MIME types
  
  
   
• Security Settings
  
  
  

Conclusion

I have explained the basics of IISExpress and it is very easy to work with it.