Guide to installing Cold Fusion 8 on Windows Server 2008 (IIS 7) 64 bit

Thu, 23 Mar 2023 15:08:14 Z

This post was imported from FARMCode.org which has been discontinued. These posts now exist here as an archive. They may contain broken links and images.

After a lot of trial and error i finally figured out how to get CF 8 running in on Windows Server 2008 x64 in IIS 7. So i figured I’d write a post about it since there’s pretty much no documentation covering this that i could find.

Installation

Take a backup of IIS
- C:\Windows\System32\Inetsrv\AppCmd add backup "backupname"
Install CF 8 Enterprise
- Select Multiserver
- Keep default paths
- DO NOT attempt to configure anything for ColdFusion until the update is applied
Install CF 8.1 Update
- Configure for Multiserver

Web Site/Server Configuration

Give the IIS users/groups (IUSR, IIS_IUSRS) full control over your JRun install folder (C:\JRun4\lib\wsconfig)
- After looking at the logs, it seems that the configuration tool is trying to set IIS_WPG permissions on this folder which is for Server 2003, not 2008
Create a new application pool called ColdFusion
- Under advanced settings, enable running in 32 bit mode and make Managed Pipeline mode Classic instead of Integrated
- CF will not run without 32 bit and Classic enabled (according to my experience so far)
Create a new website and ensure it is assigned to the ColdFusion application pool
- For testing, create a website pointed to your default CFIDE install folder
Launch the Web Server Configuration Tool from Start Menu
- Click Add
- Select "coldfusion" from the JRun Server drop down list (not "admin")
- Ensure the Web Server has IIS selected
- Select the website you just created from the IIS Web Site drop down list (Do not check All, or be prepared to restore IIS if your running other .Net apps!)
- Check "Configure web server for ColdFusion 8 application"
- Click Advanced...
  - Check Enable verbose logging for connector if you want details log requests for debugging
- Save changes and click yes to restart the web server (this will restart IIS!!!)

Testing

If you configured a test site to point to your CFIDE folder, go to the website in your browser to the /install.cfm path
- This should show you a Congratulations screen
If you configured your site with your own CF files, test those instead

Debugging

After some trial and error, i figured out the above procedure, but there are logs to refer to.
the CF web site config tool creates web site configuration structures at this location:
- \Run4\lib\wsconfig\(some number)
- Each (some number) corresponds to a different website configured with the tool
- In each folder is a LogFiles folder that contains logs that you can use to debug the installation
There's also a log file at: \Run4\lib\wsconfig\wsconfig.log

Un-configuring a site