Preserving Virtual Directories and Servers During Uninstall

ID: Q193152

The information in this article applies to:

Microsoft Internet Information Server version 4.0

SUMMARY

It may be necessary to uninstall and reinstall Internet Information Server (IIS). If there are directory mappings to virtual servers, these mappings will be lost during the uninstall process unless the following steps are followed.

MORE INFORMATION

To create a backup of the IIS 4.0 metabase, perform the following steps:

Open the Microsoft Management Console (MMC).

Expand the Internet Information Server snap-in under Console Root.

Right-click on the name of your computer.

Select the Backup/Restore Configuration option. This will display a dialog box that allows you to make a backup of the entire IIS 4.0 metabase for that computer.

After you back up the metabase, close the MMC.

When you are prompted to save the settings in the Iis.msc file, click Yes.

In Windows NT Explorer, copy the <%System_Root%>\System32\Inetsrv folder to a disk or another drive partition.

To view and confirm settings for virtual servers, you can use the MetaEdit utility that comes with the IIS 4.0 Resource Kit.

IMPORTANT: Some of the instructions below regard the use of MetaEdit, which is found on the IIS 4.0 Resource Kit. Microsoft Product Support Services is unable to provide support for MetaEdit at this time.

To view virtual directories in the IIS 4.0 metabase, start MetaEdit and expand the folder for LM\W3SVC. In the directory tree below, you will see folders numbered 1, 2, and possibly 3 and beyond. Sites 1 and 2 are created by IIS Setup for the default and administrative Web sites, respectively. Subsequent folders are mapped to virtual servers created by the user, assigned in the order in which they were created. For example:


   1
   (Default Site Settings)
      virtual directories

   2
   (Admin Site Settings)
       virtual directories

   3
   (Added Virtual Server Settings)
      virtual directories

   and so on.

FTP virtual servers are mapped similarly. For example:


   LM\MSFTPSVC\ 
      1
      (default FTP site)
         virtual directories
      2
      (Added FTP Server Settings)
         virtual directories

For additional information, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

Q185383 : How to Remove and Reinstall IIS 4.0

Additional query words:

Keywords :
Version : winnt:4.0
Platform : winnt
Issue type : kbhowto