CgiModule and FastCgiModule in IIS7

Question

My web server is IIS7 running on Windows 2008 Web edition. There are nearly 40 modules when checked pre-installed "Modules". It also having "CgiModule and FastCgiModules". All the websites installed on this server purely runs with ASP.NET technology. Can I remove these two modules to improve performance?

Same way, my application uses "Forms Authentication" only. In such case can I delete "Windows Authentication and WindowsAuthenticationModule"?.

Also please suggest if any other modules can be deleted to improve performance.

Answer 1

Yes, I would not just delete them from configuration, if your server does not require say CGI/FastCGI (for PHP or anything like that), or Windows Authentication, etc, I would uninstall them from the machine using Server Manager or Control Panel so that it even reduces the working set of your worker processes. To be honest unless your ASP.NET pages are "blazingly" fast I would not expect to see a noticeable increase in performance, but it sure is better from working set perspective, security (less exposure), and cleannes to have only the things you need installed.