The other day I had cause to install IIS on Windows Vista Business as I needed it for SQL Server Reporting Services. So I installed IIS through “Programs and Features / Turn Windows Features on or off” in the usual way.
Several reboots later, up pops a message reporting an “error wth the configuration” and IIS is rolled back. I tried several different settings within IIS thinking that somehow I had selected a “bad combination” of settings but to no avail.
In the end it was pretty simple to resolve this issue. At times like this I usually ask myself “Am I as up to date as I can be with my software?” The answer turned out to be NO as I had disabled Windows Update previously whilst troubleshooting another problem and hadn’t re-enabled it again so hadn’t taken SP1.
I downloaded SP1 for Windows Vista and once applied I repeated the IIS installation and all was well. The moral of the story, take a stable service pack when it’s available as it saves times trying to troubleshoot weird problems!
