Substitute wc.dll found in the examples below. with C:\windows\system32\DynDNSSvr.dll

Web Connection intrinsicly supports Windows Server 2003 with special setup options for IIS 6. Make sure you select IIS 6 when creating applications and configuring Web sites as operation under COM requires certain additional settings to be set namely a custom Application Pool configuration. If you are creating applications with any of the Wizards and tools Web Connection provides, the appropriate configuration settings are made automatically when choosing IIS 6 and later.

I highly recommend you use the Server Configuration Wizard for these tasks as it is the best way to make sure all the necessary settings are made.

If you have an existing application and you want to configure it for IIS 6 and later you can:
 

Important Note:
Windows Server 2003 is locked down by default to not allow any external extensions or applications to run. Instead you get 404 file not found errors. If this is the case open the IIS Management console and either allow 'Allow all unknown ISAPI extensions' to allowed or add the Web Connection DLL:

 

Manually configuring Windows 2003 Server specific settings (Application Pools)


Web Connection actually works directly with Windows 2003 Server without any configuration options. However due to the new security environment that IIS 6 imposes there are a few features that will not work the same way as they do under previous versions of IIS. Specifically Web Connection requires SYSTEM level permissions to perform certain tasks (shutting down servers, hot swapping, accessing configuration etc.). IIS 6 by default doesn't run under SYSTEM permissions and instead uses a NETWORK SERVICE account which has far fewer rights.

Rather than changing the way IIS works by default the best choice for configuration is to use a custom Application Pool and configure it for our Web Connection applictions. An Application Pool is a new feature in IIS 6 that isolates a Web application or more than one into a separate process. These highly efficient processes (which work like Daemon services on Unix) are managed by the core IIS service and provide a number of advanced features such as metrics and recycling that are very useful for guaranteeing server uptime.

Each application domain is configured individually and there are many options health features. The fetaure that is most important for Web Connection is the Identity that the AppPool runs under. By default this is NETWORK SERVICE, but we need to change this to Local System. To do this:

 

  • Go to the IISAdmin console
     
  • Select Application Pools on the local computer
     
  • Create a new Application Pool and name it West Wind Web Connection (or whatever you choose)
     
  • Go to the Identity tab and set the account to Predefined - Local System.
     

    Next you go to or create your virtual directory for your your application and select the West Wind Web Connection Pool.

     

    Scriptmaps


    You create scriptmaps using the Configuration tab on the Virtual or Root Web's Home Directory or Directory Tabs. Click Configuration | Mappings Page then click on Add. Enter the full path to the Web Connection DLL and the extension name.

    Make sure that 'Verify that file exists' is not checked!

     

    More information about Windows 2003 Server


    IIS 6 improves operation of Web Connection considerably doing away with some of the nagging problems with the IIS Management Console that have been a problem in IIS 5. Due to a brand new design of IIS 6 to run in a completely separate process (not through COM+) operation of Web Connection is actually more stable than it was previously. The MMC problems are gone, since WWWC no longer runs in the same process as IIS itself. Also shutdowns are more reliable and the new IIS 6 auto-cycling and recovery features work with no problem both in COM and file modes.

    IIS 6 uses a concept called application pools which is basically a worker process that handles each incoming request. IIS 6 uses Kernel mode HTTP drivers that talk directly to these processes which is promised to improve performance of IIS in general considerably. Use of the separate worker processes in IIS 6 means that COM+ is no longer involved which has been the core problem for firing the Web Connection servers (DCOM and COM+ incompatibilities). It's also much easier to debug the ISAPI code now than was previously possible.

    There are a number of new features in .NET server that deal with making sure that the service or pool keeps on running. This is really useful for automatically cycling the Web Server process and a few other settings. The Application can be set up to automatically restart itself after x number of hits, after a certain time, or if a certain memory limit has been hit.

    The IIS Metabase in IIS 6 is an XML file - much easier to configure this way and easier to see what's actually available for configuration. ADSI still works as before although new features like the AppPools aren't documented at this time.

     

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