Testing/Debugging website running on iis 6.0 and 7.0 with an xp development environment?

Question

Considering iis 6.0 and above can't run on xp what options have i available?

Remote debugging (using a win 2k3 host) i'm aware of but i might not have the facilities available very easily

Answer 1

I'm not sure of your exact situation (availability of OS licenses, specifically), but you could consider virtualization. I've used VirtualBox ( http://www.virtualbox.org/ ) and I've heard that MS Virtual PC ( http://www.microsoft.com/Windows/products/winfamily/virtualpc/default.mspx ) is pretty good for the MS Operating Systems.

I'll note that I have not done exactly what you are specifying. I suspect, however, that once IIS was running in the VM, you'd be able to do "remote" debugging to the VM. Also note that you'd need fair hardware to run both the virtualized OS as well as your main host/development OS.

Answer 2

For test purpose and vulnerability searching try this tool SPIKE Proxy
Using :
-Modify browser info (C:\SPIKEProxy\spkproxy\spkproxy.py):
Line 449 : IEstring="Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.0; Windows NT; Bob)
-Set proxi for IE to local:
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings]
"ProxyServer"="127.0.0.1:8080"
"ProxyOverride"=""

Answer 3

I'd use a virtual machine. I've had some very good results with development inside VMWare, and the fully functional VMWare Player is free. It just isnt able to create new virtual appliances, but I think you could grab one of the many virtual appliances and install windows on it.

Edit: It appears you can use this virtual appliance for a quick and painless Windows installation. You just need the ISO of the installation CD and it does support Windows 2000.