Configure the Web Site Identification Number

  • Article

Applies To: Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2003 with SP1

When a new site is created on Internet Information Services (IIS) 6.0, a Web site identification number is randomly generated based on the name of the Web site. In this way, Web sites of the same name usually generate the same Web site identification for IIS 6.0 servers in a Web farm. With IIS 5.0 and earlier versions, Web site identification numbers were incremental. For example, because the default Web site is created first, its site identification number is 1, and the next site to be created is identified as 2.

If you have administrative scripts that depend upon the IIS 5.0 method of generating Web site identification numbers, you can edit the registry entry IncrementalSiteIDCreation in the Windows registry to force IIS to use the incremental method of generating Web site identification numbers.

Note

When you remotely administer a server running IIS, the value of the IncrementalSiteIDCreation registry entry on the local server is used to determine the generation of Web site identification numbers on the remote server.

Requirements

  • Credentials: Membership in the Administrators group on the local and on the remote computer is required to make changes to the remote computers registry. Network policy settings might prevent you from completing this procedure.

  • Tools: Regedit.exe.

Recommendation

As a security best practice, log on to your computer using an account that is not in the Administrators group, and then use the Run as command to run IIS Manager as an administrator. At the command prompt, type **runas /user:**administrative_accountname mmc %systemroot%\system32\inetsrv\iis.msc.

Procedures

Warning

Do not edit the registry unless you have no alternative. The registry editor bypasses standard safeguards, allowing settings that can damage your system, or even require you to reinstall Windows. If you must edit the registry, back it up first and see the registry reference.

To configure the IncrementalSiteIDCreation registry entry

  1. To open the registry editor, in the Run dialog box, type regedit, and then click OK.

  2. Expand HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, expand SOFTWARE, expand Microsoft, expand the InetMGR subkey, and then click Parameters.

  3. Under Parameters, in the details pane, click IncrementalSiteIDCreation. If the entry does not exist, create it by doing the following:

  4. Select Parameters by clicking on it.

  5. On the Edit Menu, point to New, and then click DWORD Value.

  6. Type IncrementalSiteIDCreation and press ENTER to create the entry.

  7. With the entry IncrementalSiteIDCreation selected, on the Edit menu, click Modify.

  8. In the Value data box, type 1 to force IIS to use the incremental method of generating Web site identification numbers, and then click OK.

For more information about the registry, see the Registry Reference in the Windows Server 2003 Deployment Kit.