IIS and Server OS requirements for ASP.NET 4

Question

This only references requirements for clients: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/8z6watww%28v=VS.100%29.aspx

I am looking for similar documentation in reference not just for .NET 4, but ASP.NET 4 and what IIS versions, OS SP's, etc. are required. I would like to see if there are any pitfalls to requesting IT to install ASP.NET 4 and MVC 3 on our server. Don't want to have egg on my face :)

Answer 1

Per the documentaiton on the installer download for .NET 4.0 ( http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=17851)

Additional Requirements for Server Installation

If you have to perform a server installation, your computer must have the following software in addition to the basic requirements:

•Internet Information Services (IIS) version 6.0 or later. To access the features of ASP.NET, IIS with the latest security updates must be installed before the .NET Framework is installed. ASP.NET is supported only on Windows XP Professional, Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2008, and Windows Server 2008 R2.

So it will run in IIS 6.0 or above. If you want to know which operating systems support asp.net 4.0, that would be any operating system that supports IIS version 6.0 or above. This jives with my comment on your question.

That said, the biggest thing to watch out for is that you have to configure any .NET 4.0 IIS application to use a different applicaiton pool than 2.0, 3.0, or 3.5. There's more info on this here: http://johan.driessen.se/posts/getting-an-asp.net-4-application-to-work-on-iis6

Answer 2

WinXP has IIS 5 and the .net framework and ASP.NET 4 is supported on it. For server technologies, IIS6 and newer are supported, as Server 2003 which has IIS6 is the oldest server technology that supports ASP.NET 4.