I’m currently evaluating Small Business Server 2008 on a machine which I also use for testing websites and learning PHP. With such tight integration of IIS7 to run the SBS services of remote access to Exchange email, SharePoint and even just web-based remote access of machine it makes it impossible to simply stop IIS and replace it with Apache. Instead we need to set them both up to run side-by-side.

At first I told Apache to run on a different port but got tired of appending the port number to the URL every time I needed to access it from my PC.

After some more research I found a way of giving the server a second IP address and running IIS7 on one and Apache on the other, both still on port 80. One caveat to this setup is that to keep outside access to Small Business Server’s remote applications is that external SSL connections on port 443 must remain routed to IIS7.

Add a Second IP Address

1. Login to your server’s desktop and click Start –> Control Panel then open Network and Sharing Center and click Manage Network Connections under Tasks in the left panel
2. Right-click the machine’s network adapter and click Properties, clicking Continue on the UAC prompt if enabled
3. In the list select Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4) and click the Properties button
4. In the Properties dialog click the Advanced… button down the bottom-right
5. On the IP Settings tab click the Add… button in the IP addresses grouping
6. Enter the new IP address of your choice and the required Subnet mask then click Add
7. You should now have two IP addresses assigned to your machine. Click OK or close all open dialogs and windows

Bind IIS to a Single IP Address

By default IIS listens on all IP addresses assigned to the machine. We need to change this and bind it to only one. I chose to keep IIS running on the original IP address (In my case 192.168.1.100) and run Apache on the second one I assigned to it (192.168.1.110).

1. Click Start, type “cmd” in the search box then right-click cmd.exe in the Programs list and choose Run as Administrator. Click Continue on the UAC prompt
2. In the command prompt type the following:
   netsh http show iplisten
   The list returned should be empty
3. In the command prompt type:
   netsh http add iplisten ipaddress=192.168.1.100
   Replacing 192.168.1.100 with the existing IP address of your machine
4. Type out the show command from step 2 a second time and you should see your IP address in the list
5. Reboot the IIS services by typing the following in your open command prompt
   iisreset
   It will take a few minutes to completely shutdown and restart IIS
6. Once IIS has reset close the command prompt and test both your IPs in a web browser again, this time IIS should only display on a single IP address

Install and Configure Apache

For the installation of Apache you’re on your own. You can either install it from scratch or use one of the combined WAMP packages out there. Personally I use XAMPP as I am quite lazy and no longer have the time to manually install all the required components separately.

Once you have installed Apache, we need to bind it to the second, unused IP address

1. Run notepad as an administrator using the method from step 1 above
2. In Notepad click File –> Open and navigate to the folder Apache installed in. Within this folder select the ‘conf’ folder then open up the httpd.conf file (NOTE: make sure you have All Files (*.*) selected in the drop-down box at the bottom right otherwise you will not see the files)
3. Locate the line
   Listen 80
   And change it to
   Listen 192.168.1.110:80
   Replacing 192.168.1.110 with the second IP you assigned to your machine.
   
4. Save your changes then go to File –> Open and navigate to the ‘extras’ subfolder of the conf folder and open the httpd-ssl.conf file
5. Locate the line
   Listen 443
   And change it to
   Listen 192.168.1.110:443
   Again replacing the IP address written here with your own
   
6. Save your changes and start/restart Apache

You should now be able to view IIS on your original IP address and Apache on the new one you added. To get external access to Apache instead of IIS you would simply change the port forwarding rule for port 80 in your router to point to this new IP address instead of the original one.

Make sure that you do not change port forwarding for port 443 though as this will stop all remote access to email and other SBS 2008 services!

Sources

• http://www.simongibson.com/intranet/multiip/
• http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms733768.aspx
• http://weblogs.asp.net/steveschofield/archive/2007/07/06/iis7-post-44-iis7-and-apache-on-the-same-machine.aspx - Unfortunately I didn’t find Steve Schofield’s excellent guide on doing the same thing until after I had struggled through it all.

I thought I’d do a few posts devoted to some of my favourite applications and utilities. In this post are a number of free utilities I use both at work and home on a daily basis.

IE7Pro

This is an add-on for Internet Explorer 7 (and IE8 beta) that adds a multitude of features not present in the original application. The list is quite long (see their website for a complete list) but my favourite features are the Ad blocker, Search shortcuts, Download manager and the ability to double-click a tab to close it. It also includes mouse gestures and user created scripts to change the appearance of pages or add new features (kind of like Greasemonkey for Firefox). Essential for any Internet Explorer user!

Ycopy

This tool is a life saver when trying to move around lots of data. Quite simply it copies files from one location to another without interruption. If it finds a file it cannot access to copy it adds an entry to the log file and keeps on going, allowing you to deal with it later on. This is in contrast to the Windows copy utility which stops dead at any file it can’t access making you start all over again. A must for computer stores.

SyncBack

SyncBack is a very powerful and free synchronisation and backup tool. Its main features I find useful are the scheduling options and the email function which allows it to email a log file if the backup fails. It has many options and filters to make sure you only get the files you want. The company also makes a Pro, paid version which is even better again and allows it to also backup files that are currently in use.

Taskbar Shuffle

Another simple tool with a single purpose – to allow the re-arranging of open applications on the Windows Taskbar. Very handy if you have a number of applications you keep open all the time and like to have them in a set order on the Taskbar to find them easier. Newer versions also allow you to re-arrange items in the System Tray.

Something I’ve noticed whilst using Windows Vista (which may be closely related to the issues I’ve had previously with my router) is that occasionally all access to websites will stop and all I’ll get is a “Cannot Find Server” error page immediately. I don’t know exactly what is causing it, but flushing the DNS cache seems to fix it.

To flush your system’s DNS Resolver Cache do the following:

1. Open a command prompt with administrator priveliges (Click Start, type “cmd” and right-click it then go to “Run as administrator” or press CTRL+SHIFT+ENTER)
2. Click Continue on the User Account Control dialog
3. Type the following string:
   ipconfig /flushdns
   and hit enter. You should see the message “Successfully flushed the DNS Resolver Cache”
4. Close the command prompt by typing “exit” then enter.

You should now be able to access websites again. This is a perfectly harmless fix to try but there are no guarantees as to whether it will fix your specific problem. However I have found it to be an adequate fix for my own issue until I can pinpoint the cause of it.

Shortly after installing Windows Vista I went on an updating spree and updated all my device drivers and firmware to their most current versions. This included updating my Netgear DG834 v2 ADSL Modem/Router to version 3.01.32.

Somehow doing this ended up stopping Windows Live Messenger 8.1 from being able to login.

A lot of searching revealed that there are some known issues between Windows Vista and certain Routers. This has something to do with the way in which Windows Vista’s new networking stack can tune itself for the best performance. You can read more about the auto-tuning feature in this column on Microsoft’s website.

The easiest and best solution I found was to downgrade my router’s firmware back to version 3.01.25. I have been running this version successfully with no network issues at all for weeks now.

You can find Netgear firmware downloads at http://kbserver.netgear.com/downloads_support.asp. Consult your router’s manual for installation instructions.

If this doesn’t work for you, you’re already using that firmware, or you have a different model router, then you can try disabling the “Autotuning” feature:

1. Click Start and type “cmd” into the Quick Search box.
2. Right-click the “cmd” item that appears and select “Run as administrator” (Or hit ctrl+shift+enter). Click “Continue” in the resulting UAC dialog and a Command Prompt window will open.
3. In this window type the following string:
   netsh interface tcp set global autotuninglevel=disabled
   and hit enter. The prompt will return “Ok.” If successful.
4. Close the command prompt by typing “exit” then enter, or by clicking the close button in the top right corner.
5. Reboot your computer.

I found that disabling auto-tuning worked great for restoring Windows Live Messenger functionality but I was still experiencing some random network issues. Try the router firmware option first if you’re able to.

If you’re using a “current model” ADSL Modem/Router then continue to keep an eye on the manufacturer’s site for an updated, Windows Vista compatible firmware version.

One of my most missed Windows XP utilities since moving to Windows Vista has been the Image Resizer PowerToy released by Microsoft a few years back. They released a whole bunch of PowerToys and this was hands-down the most useful out of them all.

This tool allowed you to select a bunch of images then just right-click on one and select resize to create smaller copies of them alongside the originals. I found this tool extremely useful when wanting to send high-quality photos I’d taken to friends over an Instant Messaging client like MSN.

Windows Vista comes with a handful of simple photo editing tools built into Windows Photo Gallery including tools to fix exposure, colour and red eye and it even comes with a tool to crop your picture, but an image resizing tool is nowhere to be found. Why they would skip such a fundamental photo editing tool I don’t know.

However, a quick search tonight has come up with an application that very closely mimics the operation of the original Microsoft PowerToy, and also adds a couple of extra features on top. The name of this application is VSO Image Resizer and it is available as a free download from their site, VSO Software.

Once installed it really does act just like the Microsoft PowerToy. Select a photo or two, right-click and select VSO Image Resizer from the context-menu then select the size you want and hit “OK”, it will create your resized images alongside the old ones.

Take a look at VSO’s website for some screenshots and more information and of course to download the application.

If you’re still using Windows XP and want the Image Resizer PowerToy you can still find it on Microsoft’s PowerToys page.

I’ve been using Windows Vista Ultimate since it was released and ever since installing there had been one small ‘glitch’ that’d been annoying me constantly. Any folder I opened in an Explorer window had a small green arrow coming out of the folder icon for it on its taskbar button. You can see what I mean in the following screenshot.

I purchased a subscription to Microsoft’s TechNet earlier in the year and so decided to make use of it and asked why this was happening in their Managed Newsgroups. Just over 12 hours later I got a solution from a user called “dean-dean”.

“What you’re seeing is normal, depending on whether or not you have the Navigation Pane open or not. If you are using the Pane, you’ll see the green-arrow icon. If you close the Pane (under Organize >Layout), and open a folder, you will see the normal folder icon (without the arrow). In other words, the default command for “no navigation pane” folders is Open, and the default command for “show navigation pane” folders is Explore, (which then uses the green arrow icon in the taskbar, just to let you know you’re Exploring, I guess). Try it both ways…”

Basically what he’s referring to is the “Folders” pane that is in the left bar underneath “Favourite Links”. This pane is collapsed by default but can be expanded by clicking on the “Folders” heading for it at the bottom of the bar. The Folders pane shows a treeview of all the folders just like in Windows XP. Having this pane open changes the icon to the one with the arrow. Closing it reverts the icon back to the normal folder icon. Strange behaviour I know but some people probably find this useful.

So thank you dean-dean, you saved me from almost reformatting just to get rid of that stupid icon.