My experiences from installing EPiServer CMS 5 on Windows XP

Installing EPiServer CMS 5 on a Windows XP developer VM turned out to be a bit of hazzle, maybe because XP is not a “supported” OS any more?

Ok, so first installed the EPiServer CMS5 5.2 R2 application files to the default location. No problem so far.

Since I am working on an existing web site, I created a folder on disk and got latest version from TFS.

I then copied the EPiServer binaries into my bin-folder (XCOPY-deployment), and attempted to browse the website. I got this message:

Could not load type 'EPiServer.UI.WebControls.ControlAdapters.HtmlHeadAdapter'.

This error message originated from the App_Browsers / AdapterMappings.browser file.

I then went into my web.config file and verified that my VPP paths were mapped correctly to files in the Program Files\EPiServer\CMS\5.2.375.236\Application folder.

So my next thought was to open the edit/admin mode. Alas, it looked all messed up, missing both styles and graphics.

This gave me my next clue, because in EPiServer 4.x you had to remap the 404 http error status to /utils/NotFound.aspx to make the admin/edit modes look as they should, as I described in my previous posting: http://stgaup.blogspot.com/2009/10/styles-missing-in-episerver-editadmin.html.

That trick does not seem to work on CMS 5 (only works on EPiServer 4.x). Now in stead you need to do something a bit different:

1. Open the “Properties” for your web site in the IIS manager.
2. On the “Home Directory” tab, click the “Configuration…” button.
3. On the “Mappings” tab, click the “Add” button.
4. Click the “Browse” button next to the “Executable” text box.
5. Navigate to the Windows/Microsoft.NET/Framework/v2.0.50727 folder.
6. Select “Dynamic Link Libraries” in the “Files of type” dropdown.
7. Select the “aspnet_isapi.dll” file, and click the “Open” button.
8. Fill in the “Extension” as “.*” (dot-star).
9. TRICK: There’s a bug in Windows XP that has never been fixed, that causes the “OK” button to remain disabled. Click in the “Executable” text box again and then voila, the “OK” button is enabled.
10. Click OK as many times as it takes to get back to the “Internet Information Services” application.

Now try to reload your admin/edit mode. It should work.

Some good links:

• Dropit blog – Checklist for deploying EPiServer Sites
• EPiServer CMS 5 R2 Installation Instructions
• IIS 5.1 OK button unavailable when you add application mappings