Checking for a web server

To develop and test dynamic web pages, you need a web server. A web server is software that serves web pages in response to requests from web browsers.

ASP.NET pages work with only one web server: Microsoft IIS 5 or later. IIS 5 is a service of the Windows 2000 and Windows XP Professional operating systems, so you can use these two versions of Windows to run ASP.NET applications.

Make sure IIS 5 is installed and running on a computer running Windows 2000 or Windows XP Professional. You can use your local computer as the server if you have Windows 2000 or Windows XP Professional.

A quick way to check whether IIS is installed on a computer is to look at the folder structure to see whether it contains a C:\Inetpub or D:\Inetpub folder. IIS creates this folder during installation.

If IIS is not installed, install it now. For more information, see Installing Internet Information Server.

After installing the web server, install the .NET Framework. (See Installing the .NET Framework.)