Creating and Isolating Applications

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

To create an application, you designate a directory as the starting point (application root) for the application. You can then set properties for the application. Each application can have a friendly name; this name appears in IIS Manager and gives you a way to distinguish between applications.

Web sites are root-level applications by default. When you create a Web site, a default application is created at the same time. You can use this root-level application, remove it, or replace it with a new application by removing it and creating a new application.

To isolate an application means that you configure it to run in a process (memory space) separate from the Web server and other applications. You can run IIS 6.0 in one of two application isolation modes: worker process isolation mode or IIS 5.0 isolation mode. IIS cannot run both application isolation modes simultaneously on the same computer. If you have applications that require different modes, you must run them on separate computers.

Worker process isolation mode is the default application isolation mode that the server runs in on a clean installation. In this mode, you can isolate an application by adding it to an application pool that includes isolation settings.

IIS 5.0 isolation mode is provided for applications that depend on specific features and behaviors of IIS 5.0. Use this mode only if an application has a compatibility issue when it runs in worker process isolation mode and you cannot resolve the problem.

For more information about creating and isolating applications, see Creating Applications in IIS 6.0.