wordpress on windows 2003 server and IIS?

pogapro
(@pogapro)

14 years, 2 months ago

Hello,

I was asked to take over the development of a WP site, which the former developer abandoned mid-design. When I got into the backend, I discovered that the application wasn’t running properly because it was installed on a Windows 2003 server with IIS. The server was running PHP 5.2 and My SQL 5.1.

I’ve only ever worked with WP on a linux server, so this problem is pretty foreign to me. Has anyone had any luck getting WP to run properly on a Windows 2003 server? If so, what steps did you take?

I know that finding new hosting is the obvious answer, but the client doesn’t want to move because they’re running all of their systems on this server.

Any advice would be sincerely appreciated.

I know that one used to be able to run WP on Windows 2003 with MySQL 4.0.22 and PHP 4.3.9, but this older version of MySQL isn’t available any more, and as far as I know, WP 2.9 needs a minimum of 4.3 for PHP and 4.1.2 for MySQL.

Is this installation just impossible? Should I be telling my clients to upgrade to Windows 2008?

Thanks!

Viewing 8 replies - 1 through 8 (of 8 total)

bseidner
(@bseidner)

14 years, 2 months ago

Hello Pogapro,

I run WordPress with Windows 2003 with IIS 6 using php 5.2.9-2 and MySQL 5.1.34. You can check it out at http://www.seidnershouse.com. It sounds like the front-end works if so then the server can serve PHP files. What does it do when you get to the back-end? Do you want to scraped the project and do a fresh install of WordPress? One thing to check is the security rights for the user IUSR_Server that user needs certain security rights for the WordPress folders and some files depending on plugins you use. The WordPress Folder and subfolders need read and read and execute rights for that user.

Bruce

Thread Starter pogapro
(@pogapro)

14 years, 2 months ago

Hi Bruce,

I’m glad to hear that you’re running it on Windows 2003.

I was having all kinds of issues in the back-end. When I signed into WP, I would be taken to a blank php page. I was only able to sign in properly when I added a forward slash to the admin url (e.g., instead of “http://sitename.com/wp-admin”, I had to write “http://sitename.com/wp-admin/”). Once I had accessed the dashboard, any time I tried to make a change (e.g. change the admin email address in settings, turn on/off a plugin), I’d again be taken to a blank php page and would have to type “http://sitename.com/wp-admin/” into the url to re-access the dashboard (though the change I’d made would stick). I deactivated all the plugins that the previous developer had installed, uninstalled the added template, but was getting exactly the same results. Then I did some research and came across several articles that had suggested an incompatibility between Windows 2003 and WP using PHP 5, MySQL 5.

Since we can’t find MySQL 4 anyway, I’ll ask my server guy to try the fresh install and will send him the information that you’d posted. I’ll let you know how that goes.

Thread Starter pogapro
(@pogapro)

14 years, 2 months ago

Hi Bruce,

So I had my guy install the same versions of PHP and MySQL that you’re using. I figured that if you could get it to run, we should be able to as well.

I’m unsure about the IUSR_Server security rights to which you refer, though. This should, I assume, be again done by the server/database guy, right? Do you recall what changes you had to make?

Thanks very much for all your help!

bseidner
(@bseidner)

14 years, 2 months ago

Hi Pogapro,

Your Welcome! Yes the rights need to be set up by the server/database guy. If the server guy knows what he is doing he should be able to set up IIS6 in Windows 2003. This is where you can set the security rights. You also have to give write and modify to that user for the folder you use for your uploads for the media files. This can be done in explorer. Certain plunins need that same right to certain files or folders in wordpress (example if you use a avatar plugin that lets users upload their avatar to your site that folder would need those rights). The Plugins usually give you a write error of what file they could not modify. I host my own websites with my own server. If you can not get this working contact me by my website. I can help over the phone on weekdays after 5:00pm CST and on weekends anytime we both are available. This would be easier if you and the server guy can be together or on a conference call so I can see what the settings are and compare my server with your server to see if any settings need to be changed.

Bruce

Kailash
(@kailash1)

14 years, 2 months ago

WordPress should work on Windows 2003 server. Regarding blank page, it may be related to PHP memory limit. Just check with your hosting provider and make sure that they have set proper value for PHP memory. Generally you get blank page if the page tries to use more memory then the allocated one.

– Kailash

midosm
(@midosm)

13 years, 11 months ago

I am running a Windows 2003 Server and trying to load WordPress. I used the Windows Platform Installed on my local W7 PC and it worked fine. When I loaded it on the 2003 server, I initially got 404’s. Now with some tweaking I have made progress too 500’s with the following error:

The specified procedure could not be found.

Any ideas?

Thread Starter pogapro
(@pogapro)

13 years, 7 months ago

Midosm,

You’ve likely already solved your problem, but for the record, although we were ultimately able to run the application with relative success on the Windows 2003 server, it was never an absolutely smooth and reliable server for WordPress. All upgrades of the WordPress application were infinitely problematic. We finally helped our client move the site to a Linux server and everything has been running very smoothly since.

In short, while it is certainly possible to run the application on a Windows server, our experience is that such hosting often comes with problems.

prattis
(@prattis)

13 years, 2 months ago

Hi to everybody

There is a question for you all, I really need help about that.

I have just installed wordpress 3.0.4 to my server, I am a total newbie. It runs windows server 2003 and IIS 6.0.

Installation process finished perfect. I ran installation, even better that I wished. Everything seemed and worked perfect.

I made my first posts and I really finished, at list amazed of the results.

Disillusion arrived when I tried upload an image, a video or two as well. I got an error massage.

“WordPress Image Upload Error Text: Unable to create directory C:\inetbub\wwwroot\wordpress\wp-content/uploads/2011/02. Is its parent directory writable by the server?“

As you can see, in my error message, the part of the error message that makes reference in existed folders, C:\inetbub\wwwroot\wordpress\wp-content, is in Windows format,vertical bar has from left to the right direction, \ .
The part that makes reference to new folders creation, /uploads/2010/02, is different format, / , vertical bar has from right to left direction, that is linux or any other format, windows does not understand it as a folder sign.

My question is if you know any tip or trick to use on wordpress, so that when it will have to create the uploads folder, will use the right direction vertical bar — \ —.

Can you suggest any solution about this problem?

Thanks
Giorgos