Question

I'm using IIS 5.1 in Windows XP on my development computer. I'm going to set up HTTPS on my company's web server, but I want to try doing it locally before doing it on a production system.

But when I go into the Directory Security tab of my web site's configuration section, the "Secure communication" groupbox is disabled. Is there something I need to do to make this groupbox enabled?

Was it helpful?

Solution

That is because IIS 5.1 under the limited Windows XP version is limited to only HTTP. You need to have a full version of IIS 6.0 on Windows 2003 to do this. Luckily you can download a VHD image of Windows 2003 from Microsoft and run it under a Virtual PC instance. Plus I would recommend this since you are trying to be careful and use a machine close to your production environment. IIS 5.1 version is never deployed as a production machine so you cannot guarantee anything and the differences between IIS 5.1 and IIS 6.0 are significant enough where the VM is worth your while.

OTHER TIPS

You may need to manually create a certificate first (on WinXP there does not seem to be a built-in mechanism, so you need to use OpenSSL). Check out these two links:

Enabling SSL in IIS on Windows XP Professional

Enabling SSL (HTTPS) for IIS in Windows XP

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