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I have just downloaded and installed IIS express and it all works well running it from the command line:

But how do i configure options for it, is there a standalone windows interface for it like IIS Manager or do you have do do everything manually in the config files? Or do you have to install webmatrix to configure it?

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3 Answers

up vote 59 down vote accepted

IIS Express is a lightweight version of IIS and it doesn't ship with the the admin UI tool like IIS Manager. You could install WebMatrix, but it only allows you to configure few settings (binding, default documents, SSL). The options you have today:

  1. you can use appcmd.exe command line tool that can be found in the installation directory of IIS Express under the "Program Files". Majority of appcmd snippets from the IIS Configuration Reference located on http://www.iis.net/ConfigReference/ would work
  2. if you use Visual Studio, then you should be able to open %userprofile%\documents\IISExpress\config\applicationhost.config or your application's web.config and use intellisense to edit IIS configuration settings
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i thought that might be the answer :( –  user575575 Jan 17 '11 at 16:09
Your answer just helped me solve a similar issue - thanks! –  jamauss Feb 21 '12 at 23:06
Ideally one would be able to start IIS Manager on Windows 7 and create another connection to IISExpress. However, IIS Manager on client-side Windows doesn't even support multiple connections so yes, editing files / executing commands manually is the only option. –  Borek Mar 14 '12 at 1:13
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I am preparing an UI for IIS Express. I will be glad if you check it out.


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As simple as it is, this is actually an awesome little tool. It's clearly missing features such as managing sites (create, edit, etc), but for existing sites - its already useful. –  AASoft Aug 12 '12 at 1:29
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I implemented a GUI for IISExpress for:

  • adding/modifying websites
  • start/stop websites

Hope it can help:


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