Better way to install IIS7 programmatically

Question

I have a webapp installer that installs all of its prerequisites, which includes IIS 7 too.

Since IIS doesn\'t come as a prerequisite in a Visual Studio setup projec

Answer 1

I had a bit of issue with the proposed solution, since I was looking to install MANY more features. The application would run, and it would complete, but my application would hang waiting on the process.WaitForExit() call.

Just an FYI to anybody else out there seeking an answer. If your results output is too large, instead of process.WaitForExit(), you should run something like this:

string results = "";
while (!process.StandardOutput.EndOfStream)
{
    results += process.StandardOutput.ReadLine();
}

return results;

I needed that output in my next step, so I wrote the ReadLine() into a string that I returned.

Answer 2

You have a couple options here. Pkgmgr works. You can use ServerManagerCmd.exe (Windows Server), Dism.exe (newer OSes) and leverage the flags from the MS site http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc722041.aspx.

I would suggest threading out this component and if possible, update the UI with a progress notification/bar. That way your user will know things are progressing along.

Dism.exe is supposed to work with Windows 7, 8, 2008, etc. I would run some tests on a virgin VM with these OSes installed, take a snapshot and then run the installer. You can reapply the snapshot at will and you'll be able to test all the flags you need to make the software work.

Answer 3

The best option going forward is using DISM (Deployment Image Servicing and Management). This works on Windows 7/Windows server 2008 R2 and above. All other options are deprecated.

Here's a code sample with the minimum features needed (you can easily add more if you require different ones):

string SetupIIS()
{
    var featureNames = new [] 
    {
        "IIS-ApplicationDevelopment",
        "IIS-CommonHttpFeatures",
        "IIS-DefaultDocument",
        "IIS-ISAPIExtensions",
        "IIS-ISAPIFilter",
        "IIS-ManagementConsole",
        "IIS-NetFxExtensibility",
        "IIS-RequestFiltering",
        "IIS-Security",
        "IIS-StaticContent",
        "IIS-WebServer",
        "IIS-WebServerRole",
    };

    return ProcessEx.Run(
        "dism",
        string.Format(
            "/NoRestart /Online /Enable-Feature {0}",
            string.Join(
                " ", 
                featureNames.Select(name => string.Format("/FeatureName:{0}",name)))));
}           

---

static string Run(string fileName, string arguments)
{
    using (var process = Process.Start(new ProcessStartInfo
    {
        FileName = fileName,
        Arguments = arguments,
        CreateNoWindow = true,
        WindowStyle = ProcessWindowStyle.Hidden,
        RedirectStandardOutput = true,
        UseShellExecute = false,
    }))
    {
        process.WaitForExit();
        return process.StandardOutput.ReadToEnd();
    }
} 

This will result in the following command:

dism.exe /NoRestart /Online /Enable-Feature /FeatureName:IIS-ApplicationDevelopment /FeatureName:IIS-CommonHttpFeatures /FeatureName:IIS-DefaultDocument /FeatureName:IIS-ISAPIExtensions /FeatureName:IIS-ISAPIFilter /FeatureName:IIS-ManagementConsole /FeatureName:IIS-NetFxExtensibility /FeatureName:IIS-RequestFiltering /FeatureName:IIS-Security /FeatureName:IIS-StaticContent /FeatureName:IIS-WebServer /FeatureName:IIS-WebServerRole