IIS Tutorial: Installing and Running IIS on Windows XP Home Edition

The following tutorial shows how to install IIS on Windows XP Home Edition(Taken from a newsgroup post by Richard Sandoz on January 8, 2002.   I take no credit for this workaround.)

1.) Open C:\WINDOWS\INF\SYSOC.INF in Notepad or your favorite text editor.
2.) Locate the [Components] section.
3.) Change the following line:

      iis=iis.dll,OcEntry,iis.inf,hide,7

should be

      iis=iis2.dll,OcEntry,iis2.inf,,7

Note: Removing the "hide" option from any entry in this file will cause the specified service/program to appear under the Add/Remove Programs.

(The reason for changing the DLL name to iis2.dll instead of just replacing the current DLL's is that Win XP tends to delete the replaced version with the original -- perhaps due to System Restore??)

4.) The next step is to find working copies of iis.dll and iis.inf.   These can be taken from a Windows XP Pro CD, Windows 2000 Professional, Windows 2000 Server, maybe even Win98...

The files on the CD will be named iis.dl_ and iis.in_.   This is because these files are compressed.   To expand them, first copy them off the CD onto your hard drive.   Next, go to the DOS command prompt (Start...Run...cmd) and type the following commands EXPAND IIS.DL_ IIS.DLL and then EXPAND IIS.IN_ IIS.INF.   This will give you the two expanded files.

5.) Now, you just have to copy these files to the following folders:

IIS.INF C:\WINDOWS\INF
IIS.DLL C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\SETUP

6.) Now, go into Control Panel...Add/Remove Programs...Add/Remove Windows Components and you will find that Internet Information Services (IIS) is an option.   Unless you have a Win XP Pro CD, I would not recommend installing the SMTP service because the required files cannot be found on the Win2000 CD...

In order to install IIS, you will need one of the following:

Windows XP Professional CD
Windows 2000 Professional, Server, Advanced Server, or DataCenter CD
Simply insert one of these CD's, and away you go...

7.) After IIS installs, you will be able to change settings from Administrative Tools under the Control Panel.   You will most likely get errors when you first try to use your web server.   This is because the default user account used to access the Inetpub folder does not have the correct permissions.   To fix this, do the following:

1. Open Internet Services Manager from the Administrative Tools.
2. Right-click on Default Web Site and choose properties.
3. Go to the Directory Security tab.
4. Click the Edit button for anonymous access.
5. Choose your main login account as the account to be used for anonymous access...or else create a separate account that has access only to the Inetpub folder for increased security.