Case of missing “install.exe” in Windows 2003!
This took me several weeks to figure out how to fix this problem!
It starts out when I try to install IIS to my Windows 2003 R2 sp2 server and for some reason IIS just only show htm file but none for asp, aspx or php!
I searched high and low, I tried numerous sources, I combed through many forum, Microsoft support site, etc but can’t find a solution!
In the process I found out that there are lot of people having very similar symptom but none seem to have the same problem like mine.
The symptom are:
. IIS won’t show asp, aspx but only show htm
. IIS MMC crashes when try to set “allow” in “web extension”
. There are no error in the event log
. Can’t un-install .NET framework 2.0 (keep asking for install.exe”) <– clue
The solution is very simple once I figure it out!
Here are the steps:
. Un-install all newer .NET framework
. download and extract .NET framework 2.0 to a folder call “dotnetv2″
. Un-install .NET framework 2.0 and point to “dotnetv2″ folder when prompt for “install.exe”
. Reinstall .NET framework 2.0
. Re-apply all patches and all new .NET framework
Now all the above symptom that I described are all gone and IIS happily serves up htm, asp, aspx, even php too!
That’s it!