IIS: InstallAware Automation (Stopped)

[Andrew Kidd]

I see the above message in the IIS management console, at the same level as the default website. What is it? And why can't I start it? (I get the error message 'Request is not supported')

Regards,

Andrew

[sinan]

This is a testing site that the InstallAware installer creates for you, so you can test InstallAware's automation interface through IIS websites. If you cannot start it, that is probably because the site settings conflict with another existing site on your IIS configuration.

[Mike Stefanik]

If you're running on Windows XP, you can only have one active website running. I don't use the automation interface and have no need for the test site to even be installed, but XP doesn't give you a way to delete it through the management console.

However, where there's a will, there's a way. To remove it, right-click on the InstallAware website (presuming it's stopped, because it conflicts with the default webserver) and select Properties. Then click on the Properties button on the Web Site tab; that'll pull up the Extended Logging Properties dialog. Look at the very bottom, you'll see a line that says "Log file name: W3SVCn/...." where 'n' is a number. Remember that, it's the number associated with the test webserver. Most likely it'll be "2", but it could be something else. Close out all of the dialogs.

Now that you know the number of the website, open a command line prompt and change directory to C:\\InetPub\\AdminScripts and run the command:

cscript adsutil.vbs delete w3svc/n

Where 'n' is the number that you determined above. For example, if it was number 2, then you'd enter:

cscript adsutil.vbs delete w3svc/2

You should get a message about a "deleted path" and the non-functional test website is gone. Just be careful when you do this and make sure that you're specifying the right website to delete; there's no "undo" once you've deleted the site.

[sinan]

Thank you very much for sharing this information, Mike.

Do you have any suggestions for the site InstallAware creates at install-time, so we can update our installer to make sure it doesn't break an existing server in this fashion?

[Mike Stefanik]

Because Windows XP Professional only supports one active website, you'd either need to install your files for the default website (I presume creating virtual directories) or make it clear that the developer would have to stop the default website. You might want to consider giving them an option during installation as to whether or not to create the site at all.