How do I set up IIS to debug classic ASP?
Help Needed Setting up Classic ASP Debugging
According to what I have seen on social media, in order for me to set up my computer for writing and debugging Classic ASP, I need to set up IIS a certain way – which I did – and then I have to enable ASP by doing the following:
IIS7 - IIS > ASP > Compilation > Debugging Properties > Enable Server-side Debugging
And I am stuck on this. Please, someone give me an idea of what I need to click on.
I might be ready now to have a go at making my first “Hello World” classic ASP program.
I clicked on the help button and this lead me to a browser page which explained how to create an ASP page.
This link offers this help:
and this takes me to a new page
I have accomplished the prerequisite and step 1 on the list. So I go to step 2
Step 2: Add a Classic ASP Website You can perform this procedure by
using the user interface (UI), by running Appcmd.exe commands in a
command-line window, by editing configuration files directly, or by
writing WMI scripts. To add a website by using the UI Open IIS
Manager. For Windows Server 2012, on the Start page click the Server
Manager tile, and then click OK. On the Server Manager Dashboard,
click the Tools menu, and then click Internet Information Services
(IIS) Manager. For Windows 8, on the Start page type Control Panel,
and then click the Control Panel icon in the search results. On the
Control Panel screen, click System and Security, click Administrative
Tools, and then click Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager. In
the Connections pane, right-click the Sites node in the tree, and then
click Add Website. In the Add Website dialog box, type a friendly name
for your website in the Site name box. If you want to select a
different application pool than the one listed in the Application Pool
box, click Select. In the Select Application Pool dialog box, select
an application pool from the Application Pool list and then click OK.
In the Physical path box, type the physical path of the Web site’s
folder, or click the browse button (…) to navigate the file system
to find the folder. If the physical path that you entered in step 5 is
to a remote share, click Connect as to specify credentials that have
permission to access the path. If you do not use specific credentials,
select the Application user (pass-through authentication) option in
the Connect As dialog box. Select the protocol for the Web site from
the Type list. The default value in the IP address box is All
Unassigned. If you must specify a static IP address for the Web site,
type the IP address in the IP address box. Type a port number in the
Port text box. Optionally, type a host header name for the Web site in
the Host Header box. If you do not have to make any changes to the
site, and you want the Web site to be immediately available, select
the Start Web site immediately check box. Click OK.
It has been a long time since I have done anything like this. Basically, I assume I am turning my desktop computer into a web server. Am I right? If this is so, do I have to follow through with all the overhead and steps in buying a namespace? I hope not.
I have questions about step 4 : “If you want to select a different application pool than the one listed in the Application Pool box, click Select. In the Select Application Pool dialog box, select an application pool from the Application Pool list and then click OK.” As I type out the site name, the field for “Application pool” repeats what I type for the site name. Since I am not creating a new application pool – or I do not want to – I click on select and choose the DefaultAppPool .
Since I am only wanting to write test code locally, I connect as an application user.
I did not put in an IP address.
It complained that I was using port 80. So I switched it to port 79 and clicked ok.
So now I think I have an asp website. What do you think?
Yes, IIS is a web server application that allows your computer to serve web pages. And No, you don’t need to buy anything to do local development on IIS for a classic ASP application.
This is fine, often, especially for local development, you would be in the DefaultAppPool.
Usually when it complains about port 80 it is because you have something already using that port. That is fine, you can choose another port number. I would probably advise you go with a higher port number though since low port numbers are expected to stay open for various established protocols. Usually devs use ports like 8080 or 5000 or 8000 etc. I personally try to stay 3000 and above. For instance port 79 “was” used for a protocol called “finger”. So again, just to play safe I would use a higher number.
Once you have this setup, make sure that IIS is working, that you create a site that points to a folder/directory on your computer and that you have something like a default.asp document in that directory, you can try going to your local host on the assigned port number to see if it is working.
I will say however that learning classic ASP now a days is really not ideal. Classic ASP was abandoned by Microsoft a while ago and is largely not used by anyone anymore. You may find some old sites out on the Internet that still use it, but they are largely moved on to ASP.NET. So if you are learning this stuff in an attempt to possibly build a career in web development, I recommend moving on to another more modern technology. ASP.NET will probably be the easiest if you want to use languages like VB/C#. Just some helpful advice. 
This is on a Windows 10 computer. I have successfully completed setting up IIS and system settings for running a web page written in Classic ASP. Attaching it as a process after opening up the folder location of the default.asp and code did not work.
But I had success with this option:
And since I have already set things up in my ISS it appears as an option to debug:
iis:
The asp files are recognized in the Solution Explorer with this associated icon for an asp file.
But the problem is that I can not put a breakpoint. If I try the message is that the “breakpoint can not be hit. No symbols have been loaded for this document”
Please advise.
There is something else that is strange. If I stop the program and load just one .asp file and hit run for debugging, it will process just that one file and if I purposely put a compile error in the file, it will catch it in the browser and throw an error message.
This topic was automatically closed 91 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.
