Microsoft’s Application Request Router (ARR) IIS Extension is a complex piece of software which integrates with several other components to do its job. These components are URL Rewrite, Web Farm Framework and ARR’s External Cache module. For things to work correctly, not only do you need all components, but they must also be installed in a specific order, which can be confusing. Several years ago, Microsoft introduced the Web Platform Installer (WebPI) mechanism, which makes it easy to manage installed components. It’s used with many things nowadays, and is also a good way to install ARR and all its components properly and easily.

Occasionally, though, you might find yourself in a situation where you still prefer to avoid using the WebPI installation option. For example, one such scenario is when installing ARR on the Server Core edition of Windows, where WebPI cannot be used. If so, another option you have is installing it using our IExpress package, which includes all the components together. To use it, download it from this page and install.

Another option is to install the components by hand, which will require you to download the components separately. This is the procedure for doing so:

1. Stop IIS first by typing net stop was /y and net stop wmsvc /y on an elevated command-line window:

*** note that WMSVC is the IIS Web Management Service, which might not be enabled on your server. In such a case, trying to stop it will result with The Web Management Service service is not started. This is not unusual and should not be cause for alarm.

2. Download and install the Web Farm Framework module. It is currently available in version 1.1

3. Download and install the External cache module. It is currently available in version 1.0

4. Download and install the URL Rewrite module. It is currently available in version 2.0 

5. Download and install ARR itself. It is currently available in version 3.0

6. Start the IIS services back (or, simply reboot your server) and you should be good to go!

If you need to do this on an X86 server, like windows 2008, you can download the X86 version of these components here:

· Web Farm Framework X86

· External cache X86

· URL Rewrite X86

· ARR X86

Going fast is always fun, but when it comes to your hardware, it could mean saving a lot of money on hardware and stretching your budget to the max. Software developers usually spend a lot of time and energy on making their product run as lean and efficient as possible, but ultimately, every customer uses his systems differently, and so there’s no one-size-fits-all. For this reason, most products allow you to tweak some settings to squeeze a bit more performance out of your system.

A few days ago, the Windows Server team has produced a highly detailed and very comprehensive guide for performance tuning. It offers a whole bag of tricks and tips on choosing hardware, altering settings and adjusting parameters to get the most out of the various parts of your system.

Part of the guide pertains specifically to IIS, and this new version of the guide includes updates pertaining to the latest version of IIS – version 8.5 that’s bundled with Windows Server 2012 R2.

Take a look at the link below, and a big thanks to Daniel Straka from CSS for his tremendous efforts in making this happen!

Performance Tuning Guidelines for Windows Server 2012 R2