How to install EPiServer from the EPiServer Manager on Windows Server 2008

by: Enes Bajramovic

Update - 16/10/2008: this article was written in march when EPiServer did not support IIS7 which means Vista and Windows Server 2008. For all of you insterested to install EPiServer on you Vista or Windows Server 2008 machines I strongly reccomend to download and install latest release of EPiServer which includes EPiServer Installer Manager fully supported on these two platforms. It will save you some time and headaches. - Enes 

If you wish to install EPiServer 5 CMS on your Windows Server 2008 you can do it in two ways: manually and by using EPiServer Manager.  By saying it can be installed by the Manager I don’t mean it is so straight forward. Ruwen wrote a couple of articles about EPiServer on Vista both manual and manager installations which I advise you to read. Installation on WS 2008 is almost identical to what he described there so we have a bit of redundancy but that doesn’t hurt.

Preliminary steps

EPiServer Manager requires metabase that is not installed by default on IIS7. Metabase can be installed adding IIS6 compatibility mode. Follow these steps to install IIS 6 compatibility:

1. Open programs and features and select “turn windows …..”

 

2. Click on web server IIS

 

3. Click on Add Role services

 

4. Check IIS 6 Management compatibility and install the feature 

  

Manager Installation

1. Create new .cmd file and copy following text in it : start http://download.episerver.com/ClickOnceManager/EPiServerManager.application#EPiServerManager.application, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=58dc57a1c62403a2, processorArchitecture=msil

2. Save and run it “as Administrator”. It will install EPiServer Manager. Close the manager.

3. Create new .cmd file and copy Following text in it "C:\Users\[YOUR USER HERE]\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\EPiServer\EPiServer CMS Manager.appref-ms"

4. Run it “as Administrator”. It will start the manager

5. In the menu click “Action” --> “Install” and install new EPiServer Site

6. When the site is installed open IIS7 Manager

7. In the sites node right-click on your episerver newly installed site and choose remove

8. Restart IIS

9. In the IIS7 Manager choose “Add web Site”

10. Point to your episerver installation folder and configure bindings appropriately

11. Open Command prompt and execute following line %SystemRoot%\system32\inetsrv\appcmd migrate config "[YOUR SITE NAME HERE]/"

12. Edit web.config file and add following attribute in the modules node runAllManagedModulesForAllRequests="true"

13. Open browser and navigate to your newly installed EPiServer website.

05 March 2008


Comments

  1. If you get "startIndex cannot be larger than length of string" try going back in the wizard to the start step and then try again.
  2. In command %SystemRoot%\system32\inetsrv\appcmd migrate config "[YOUR SITE NAME HERE]/" i had to write [SITENAME]/[SITENAME] though. After im finished with the guide, trying to run the site i get an Internat Server Error (500) Please help.
  3. Esben, You can get it running with Classic Mode in the Application Pool used. But. Before i installed SP1 for Vista everything worked excellent on my development workstation (Vista Ultimate). Since SP1 got installed the UI throws javascript errors, both in the public frontend and in the edit/admin UI. The error tells me that 'EPi is not defined' on various locations in the code. Same error in all browsers. Any ideas why this happened?
  4. The 'EPi is not defined' error got solved after creating a new web in IIS. Success!
  5. Also. If youre running IIS 7 on a 64bit OS, Another thing that might help is to set the Application Pool to Enable 32-Bit Applications. Fixes some issues within the site, urlmapping etc. Sorry bout the spam. : )
  6. One in for all: The 'EPi is not defined' error is caused by a incorrect path in the web.config. The key is UtilFiles in episerver/virtualPath/providers.
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