CAn I run Drupal Using IIS?

While I'm not running 5.1, 4.7.x will run just fine on IIS. All I did was to follow the instructions. Yes, there are .sql file that are needed to setup the database. Specifics?

mlcc2000

You can use XAMPP...it will install/configure Apache and MySQL for your...and you will be up and running in a sec. simplier i think.

I am a beginner so please bare with me..

I downloaded drupal and I created a database in mysql. I am not using the other apache software because of difficulties.

How do I get to the default settings.php file and how do I make the file writable?

I have my home directory in IIS pointing to C:\Inetpub\drupal\sites\default.

In my browser i get error: The website declined to show this webpage http 403. when trying to access that site. My IIS is functioning though. The settings file is a .php file.

I am a beginner to all of this.

Please help, I know Drupal cannot be that hard to setup.

I have been through the setup of a Drupal site on IIS6 and had documented the process as I went along.
Consider this to be my first Drupal Tutorial.

install all necessary files

1. install Php5 and activate the "mbstring" extension
2. install MySQL and preferably the MySQL GUI Tools. I have tried phpMyAdmin on IIS, but this gave lots of problems.
3. Create a folder to host the complete Drupal system, e.g. "drupal"
4. Create a "files" subfolder underneath the drupal folder and give it global read/write permissions
5. Create a "pictures" subfolder underneath "files" (it'll inherit the permissions)
6. Creata a new database (scheme) in MySQL, e.g. "drupal" and a user with full permissions, e.g. "drupal"
7. Download the Drupal distribution and unpack it in the main drupal folder. Make sure that the files are not in a subfolder of this folder

configure Drupal

1. Before you attempt an install, go to "/sites/default/settings.php" and edit the $db_url to something like "mysql://name:password@localhost/databasename", as the installation script did not seem to be able to store the settings correctly.
2. Go to the main site with your browser and the configurationscript should start. Fill in what you need to fill in, but in my case, the settings file had to be edited manually

smtp Mail with IIS

I had to add the smtp service to IIS6.0. In "relay restrictions" I added the IP adress of my server. You might have to set up the Advanced settings underneath delivery, depending on how you are allowed to send mail. This was tricky in our configuration.

Clean URLs?

This was also rather tricky.

1. Install "ISAPI_rewrite Lite", a freeware addon for IIS by Helicon, which does something similar to the Apache mod_rewrite function.
2. Edit the rewrite rules in "c:\Program Files\Helicon\Isapi\httpd.ini" according to info on http://drupal.org/node/27141
3. Activate the option 'clean_url'=>1 in "settings.php" (make the file read-only afterwards)

Cron

Either manually launch this from within Drupal or use the "Poormanscron" module.

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