When visiting a webpage on the internet, you are accessing files on someone else’s computer. Taking this basic concept into mind, we will be creating our own webpage using Windows IIS.

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Written and tested by yours truly, 43y3s

Table of Contents

  1. Installing IIS
    1. Checking installation
  2. Creating our first website
    1. Pre-reqs
    2. Making the site
  3. Troubleshooting
  4. Uninstalling IIS

Installing IIS

  1. Hit the windows key and start typing Turn Windows and select Turn Windows features on or off.
  2. Scroll to find Internet Information Services.
  3. Check the box to filled, and ensure that everything except FTP is filled as well.

  1. Press OK, and reboot computer.

Checking installation

Open a browser tab, and navigate to http://localhost in the search bar, and you should be met with a blue webpage shown below.

Creating our first website

Pre-reqs

  • Before configuring IIS, we need to create a directory to host our website files. Open File Explorer, navigate to This PC, Windows (C:), then create a new folder named Websites. Inside of that folder, create a new folder named MyWebsite. All your website files will live inside of this directory.

Making the site

  1. After installation of IIS, creating and hosting your own website is fairly simple.
  2. Hit the windows key and type in IIS and select Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager, which should bring up a control panel for all IIS services.

  1. Disable the Default Web Site by right clicking Default Web Site, selecting Manage Website, then Stop

  1. Right click on Sites, and select Add Website. This should bring up a control panel named Add Website, shown below.

  1. Download the sample html webpage here, and place it into the new directory, C:\Websites\MyWebsite
  2. Navigate to http://localhost once more and you should see your new website. Congrats!

Troubleshooting

As of 27AUG2020, all iterations of this guide have been working. Issues will be addressed into the future.

Uninstalling IIS

  • Hit the windows key and start typing Turn Windows and select Turn Windows features on or off.
  • Scroll to find Internet Information Services.
  • Check the box to empty
  • Press OK.
  • Allow computer to reboot as necessary.