Drupal for windows

Hi there I think I kinda feel your pain. I used to write scripts in Active Server Pages with IIS on Windows but I was forced to make the switch because XP home doesnt allow IIS. If you are using Windows you could actually install PHP on your IIS just google it and you should find a tutorial. Personally I'd advise that you ditch IIS for Apache and install PHP and MySQL. You can install them manually but make sure you download the Windows versions of Apache and MySQL. There's a tutorial on how to do it somewhere in Google or better still install WAMP. www.wampserver.com. It's the entire package bundled into one easy to install software. If you have IIS on your system please disable it before installing WAMP as there will be conflicts. After that you can run Drupal or any other PHP script with some peace of mind. You should do a lot of Googling as per optimization and all that. And this Drupal website has such a helpful community. Good luck with your Drupal experience and be patient it's worth the wait

Easiest solution: Ditch IIS and install the Acquia DAMP suite -- Drupal, Apache, MySQL, PHP.
http://acquia.com/downloads

Or get Acquia Drupal for IIS from Microsoft
http://www.microsoft.com/web/gallery/Install.aspx?appsxml=www.microsoft....

I have used IIS and on occasions installed Apache on a Windows server along side IIS. Apache based Web sites are easier, more reliable, and more predictable in Windows than IIS. Windows Pro with NTFS and Windows Server with NTFS perform some things faster than Linux/Unix with ext2. IIS slows down Windows more than Apache slows down Windows. You will not see much difference on an underutilized system. The crunch occurs when you get a sudden increase in workload. Your site takes off. The IIS site will run out long before the Apache site.

MySQL and PHP does not care about the Web server or the operating system. Drupal works fine on Windows. I create small applications on Windows desktop computers as local Apache/PHP/MySQL based Web sites. Setting up Apache/PHP/MySQL is not much more difficult than setting up Microsoft Access. You save a lot of time with application development because you can use Drupal and Drupal add on modules to build 90 percent of your application. Some of the projects that required three weeks in Visual Basic under Microsoft Access now take just one day including installing Apache/PHP/MySQL/Drupal plus add on modules plus running up a Drupal module to perform the custom work.

A Windows server is nice and has access control advantages over Linux, even when Linux has the optional new ACL system. Using IIS on your Windows server is like ripping the V8 engine out of your Firebird and installing the single cylinder engine from your old lawn mower. You might get problems. Nobody will know how to fix them. When you call Microsoft, based on my experience, all they want to do is sell you a new lawn mower engine that is a different shape and requires a special adapter product from Microsoft. The new engine will have all the same old problems plus the adapter will introduce new problems. You then wait a year for Microsoft Adaptor 2.0.