HTTPS in IIS 5.1

Question

I'm using IIS 5.1 in Windows XP on my development computer. I'm going to set up HTTPS on my company's web server, but I want to try doing it locally before doing it on a production system.

But when I go into the Directory Security tab of my web site's configuration section, the "Secure communication" groupbox is disabled. Is there something I need to do to make this groupbox enabled?

Answer 1

That is because IIS 5.1 under the limited Windows XP version is limited to only HTTP. You need to have a full version of IIS 6.0 on Windows 2003 to do this. Luckily you can download a VHD image of Windows 2003 from Microsoft and run it under a Virtual PC instance. Plus I would recommend this since you are trying to be careful and use a machine close to your production environment. IIS 5.1 version is never deployed as a production machine so you cannot guarantee anything and the differences between IIS 5.1 and IIS 6.0 are significant enough where the VM is worth your while.

Answer 2

You may need to manually create a certificate first (on WinXP there does not seem to be a built-in mechanism, so you need to use OpenSSL). Check out these two links:

Enabling SSL in IIS on Windows XP Professional

Enabling SSL (HTTPS) for IIS in Windows XP