Server 2016 For Windows IIS

Because for security reasons and lack of foresight by the microsoft programmers you can only have ONE SSL certificate on a installation of IIS before IIS 8, my server had IIS 7.5, I have two web sites that the search engines require HTTPS to index the web site pages.

Note: If you came to this page by search and this is your first installation of a server Operating System you may want to read some of the base articles here: Advanced Computer Repair Techniques Servers section

This came about recently and has been in the works for some time. Being retired and hosting my own web sites from my business location I failed to keep up with the technology being spewed from some of the larger tech companies. Yes having a secure web site is a good thing not only for the owner [keep hackers at bay? maybe] but for the visitor. If the web site isn't secure and "trusted" then the visitor will not feel comfortable and will probably never return...

Why Upgrade to Server 2016 For Windows IIS

The old adage for a server of set up, optimize it, and forget it does not work for web hosts. About 18 months ago my Windows Server 2003 installation for my web hosting was hacked. My bad because I failed; I ignored the crap being spewed by certain tech companies and did not pay attention to the real news, the coming of HTTPS to the web.

Ok, a couple of those "big tech companies - btc" caused the demise of my first and very profitable web site! So having used all the profits from my first foray into the web site owner/author/ developer I could not spend a lot of money upgrading the Operating System for the IIS I needed to lock down the web sites.

Have you seen this on this web site: "Buy cheap, Get cheap" or "When you buy cheap you will be buying again..."

I upgraded from the old Operating System 2003 to the 2008 R2 version. It was some what of a struggle to get every thing operational (with the help from some friends on the web) I figured it out and put this web site and my blog back up. (If you want to read about the struggle it is here.)

In Jan of 2021 with all the parts in place the powers that be for web services deemed the old format for a web page gone, web search engines (well most of them) will not index a web page that has the old format: H T T P, not only that any content (pages) that have the letters h t t p on them are considered insecure. Case in point when you look at the address block you will see a couple of little icons just before the address text: a i in a circle - this denotes information, and a little padlock - A full padlock with out any other symbols denotes a secure and "trusted" page. Any additional symbols denotes an not-trustworthy page. Most of the time this is because the SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) can/will not encrypt the data before transmitting it to your browser. (If interested or need more information this is a very good site: SSL.com)

You Need Server 2016 For Windows IIS To Have More Than One Web Site

So for a few dollars (50+ USD) more and lot of work, struggling, research, reformatting I installed and had Windows Server 2008 R2 operational and my web sites back on the web. Now I have to go back through that struggle and upgrade to Windows Server 2016.

Why? I would like to say is would be easy for microsoft to correct their poor judgment and programming but as we all know the company will not do a patch to correct an error, not enough business hold btc accountable for their mistakes. Nope they just shovel out more money for more kludged Operating Systems.

IIS 7.5 was very close to a nightmare in getting it configured from the old IIS 6 web server to run my main web site hopefully this upgrade will go smoother.

IIS 6 to IIS 7.5 (and maybe IIS 8+) will only bind (recognize and use) one SSL Certificate! You can not host two or more web sites that require HTTPS and the corresponding certificate on these platforms. And good 'ol M$ isn't going to help you, nope you gotta spend more money to get the feature that does this!

Note: Sorry for the gripping, however I am not the only web site owner/author/developer that has been bitten by this. You can find some people are quite upset about this sudden and very low visibility move from the old format to the new one: HTTPS  --- And this may be a short term fix - H T T P /2 is on the horizon, wonder how the SSL groups will handle the encryption of the new format, hummmm?  :)

So for a few dollars more (over 90 USD) and some time [a lot!] I get to upgrade to Windows Server 2016, what additional pitfalls, walls, bad programming lies ahead? Well I will post it here: the good, the bad, and of course the ugly.

Server 2016 For Windows index:

Famous last words: I know I am going as cheap as possible on this upgrade, the latest and greatest would cost me ...

Wait for it...

Well over 900 USD, that is with all the added licenses M$ charges for now; the days of the 5 CAL license is long gone.