Installed IIS but get blank page and it doesn't show up in Windows services list

Question

I am trying to install IIS on my Windows 8.1 laptop and followed the directions at Microsoft for installing IIS. But when I type localhost, instead of getting the IIS start page, I get a blank page.

When I do Windows + R and type services.msc, the resulting list of services is long but does not include Internet Information Services.

When I look at the Windows filesystem, I do find the inetpub folder with four subfolders, including wwwroot. In the wwwroot folder is the iisstart.htm file that is supposed to display when I type localhost into my browser.

I have read that one possible problem is that both Skype and IIS want to use Port 80 and there is a conflict. So I decided to try to change the default port for IIS, but I found that I don't appear to have the IIS Manager on my system. When I go to Administrative Tools, Internet Information Services Manager is not on the list of administrative tools.

I added both the HTTP Redirection module as well as the IIS Management Service on top of the initial basic installation that Microsoft described. Still no luck getting IIS working or IIS Manager to appear.

I have tried to research this problem of getting IIS to work on Windows 8.1 with no success and am at a loss. Suggestions welcome!

Answer 1

In Control Panel --> Programs --> Programs And Features --> Turn Windows features on or off -> Internet Information Services -> World Wide Web Services -> Common HTTP Features -> Static Content.

Also make sure .NET Extensibility 3.5 and .NET Extensibility 4.5 are checked.