IIS 6 questions

Hello.

A few days back, I installed Windows Server 2003 on a virtual PC on my main PC. For that, I used Microsoft's Virtual PC 2004.

Everything went well, and the IIS 6 seems to work from inside. By this I mean that I could access the pages using localhost.

How would I get it to work from outside as well? I've tried it with my host PC, and it doesn't work either.

Then I tried Apache, and that works fine. However I'm a Windows guy so I would like experience on the IIS -side of servers.

I also installed MySQL and PHP (newest). MySQL works for sure, but PHP does not. I used the automated setup to install it, then I did change something inside IIS to allow PHP to work. But, when accessing a PHP file, it returns HTTP error code 500; internal server error.

I'm thinking on removing this virtual PC and adding a new one, when I know how to do things right. They say PHP should be installed manually...

Thanks for any advices.

- Clippit

PS. I have the newest PHP and MySQL software.

First, open the iis service manager and look around at all the gazillion settings and configurations. While it's open, open the IIS online documentation and read for a while. Pay particular attention to windows file permissions and IIS.

Once you have a basic understanding of how IIS does it's thing, then try using the instructions from the php website for doing an isapi php installation.