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Does Windows XP with IIS5 need any extra configuration to be suitable as a web server? I'm not considering using this for anything other than a web server on a small network for testing development etc.

One of the reasons I'm concerned though is that we've deployed an ASP.net application to a workstation with Windows XP, and running the application using a browser on the machine (accessing http://localhost/myApp/page.aspx) runs the application really quickly. If another machine on the LAN accesses the same page (using http://ComputerName/myApp/page.apx) then the whole application runs noticeably slower.

The computers are connected on a gigabit switch, so I wouldn't have thought network latency or bandwidth could be an issue.

Does Windows XP need anything etc enabled or changed or network settings for it to work correctly?

EDIT: additional info: all the workstations are on a large company domain, but our workstations are all located physically on the same switch on the same subnet...

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We used to have our staging server deployed on XP for licensing reasons, however you need to be aware of:

  • Maximum Connection Limit (10 concurrent)
  • Only one website (you can get around this using adsutil but it's a pain)

Regarding your latency issues, it's most likely a DNS issue, and there are dozens of things that can cause this. To get around it, try accessing the server by its IP address, rather than its DNS name. (e.g. http://192.168.0.1 instead of http://internalserver/). If it's full-speed using the IP address, then it's DNS related, and you'll need to search around on ServerFault for the answer (it's here somewhere)

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  • I'm not sure if this is what you meant, but if I access the website using the ip address ON the server, it then runs as slow as it does from the other workstations, if I use LocalHost, it is really quick again...
    – davidsleeps
    Mar 22, 2010 at 1:26
  • The web application uses Windows Authentication, could that be an issue? Even though it runs really quickly accessed through LocalHost on the server?
    – davidsleeps
    Mar 22, 2010 at 1:36
  • +1 for the 10 concurrent connections limit. It's real easy to miss this in testing and suddenly find your site doesn't work at production launch.
    – Joel Coel
    Mar 22, 2010 at 1:39
  • Using the Universal Tcpip.sys Patch tool, it says: Windows XP Professional SP3 (2600) Limit: Current half open connection upper limit is 10
    – davidsleeps
    Mar 22, 2010 at 1:50
  • What happens when you access it via 127.0.0.1 on the box running the IIS?
    – Mark Henderson
    Mar 22, 2010 at 2:49
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It may help to set processor scheduling to Background Services.

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