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Thursday, March 1, 2012

Enabling Dynamic HTTP Compression in IIS7 on Windows Server 2008

I’m not very familiar with the newer configuration screens in Windows Server 2008 so I pulled my hair out trying to update some settings. Apparently it’s just too obvious for Google to have been any help so I’m documenting it here for the next shmuck.
I wanted to enable dynamic http compression. I found the page to enable it but it wasn’t installed:
“The dynamic content compression module is not installed.” (but we won’t tell you how to install it)
It turns out that installing it is very easy and didn’t require a reboot (for me, at least):
Text only
Install it:
  1. Open server manager
  2. Roles > Web Server (IIS)
  3. Role Services (scroll down) > Add Role Services
  4. Add desired role (Web Server > Performance > Dynamic Content Compression)
  5. Next, Install, Wait…Done!
Enable it:
  1. Open server manager
  2. Roles > Web Server (IIS) > Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager
  3. Next pane: Sites > Default Web Site > Your Web Site
  4. Main pane: IIS > Compression
With perdy pictures
Install it:
  1. Open server manager
    0 start server manager
  2. Roles > Web Server (IIS)
  3. Role Services (scroll down) > Add Role Services
    SNAG-0000
  4. Add desired role (Web Server > Performance > Dynamic Content Compression)
    SNAG-0001
  5. Next, Install, Wait…Done!
    SNAG-0002
Enable it:
  1. Open server manager
  2. Roles > Web Server (IIS) > Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager
    SNAG-0003
  3. Next pane: Sites > Default Web Site > Your Web Site
  4. Main pane: IIS > Compression
    SNAG-0004

    SNAG-0005
You might be wondering why you’d want to compress content in the first place. This site has a nice analysis of the practice as well as detailed information regarding what compression level you should use (and how to set it).

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