Are any big boards successfully hosted on WINDOWS?
 

I have a radio station that needs windows, and a vbulletin forum that I would like to keep on linux - but having two servers is getting to be too much strain on the wallet.

My board isn't big in activity, but we have over 500,000 posts and high hopes :)

Yes I run all my forums on Windows. Never had a single problem either.

can you or anyone else point me in the right direction to learn about hosting on windows?

Start at http://iis.net and then hit http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/w...wt.svl=leftnav.

Those should get you started. If you're familiar with Remote Desktop then you'll find using Windows Server as easy as using your home computer.

integrating php on iis is easy, 10 minutes work... mysql database is easy too.

I don't know about seo alternatives. Zoints SEO is for apache and I had lotsa headaches making it work with lighttpd, I don't expect it to be easier on IIS. VBSeo, tho, is supported and you can ask them directly.

No problem with Zoints or any other product that need mod rewrite. Install http://helicontech.com isapi rewrite v3. It is 90% compatible with Apache rewrite.

Upgrading mysql and php is a snap too.

Do not use isapi rewrite v3 - the latest builds of it have severe stability problems on Windows Server 2003. I had constant crashing of IIS and performance issues on two separate servers (one 32 bit, one 64 bit Windows 2003), and I saw on their forums that other people have the same problems. I replaced it with the 100% mod_rewrite compatible Isapi Mod Rewrite and all of the problems disappeared:

http://www.micronovae.com/ModRewrite/ModRewrite.html

It is a little bit more expensive, but it has been rock solid. It instantly solved the issues I was having. I can't recommend it more highly in comparison to Isapi Rewrite.

I have a windows server 2003 running now in my server and all ok. Some issues with vbseo but now is stable in my big-board

Interesting post. I have used v3 since the early betas. Never had a problem. maybe you should link me to a few of those posts. I visit their forum everyday and have yet to see any reports about it crashing since the final version was released. I nknow one of the betas had a problem.

No isapi filter can be 100% compatible with Apache rewrite. It's just not possible and if they claim that they are lying. Some directives can not be translated to IIS because the variables are not passed by an IIS server.

how active is your big board?

Here are a few of the threads:

http://www.helicontech.com/forum/for...s-TID-8846.htm

http://www.helicontech.com/forum/for...s-TID-8457.htm

http://www.helicontech.com/forum/for...s-TID-8870.htm

It seems they have released a new build that may address these issues, but I couldn't wait for the release and have my site continue to be down for several days.

As far as the 100% computability, it is what their web site says, not my claim. My main concern was that it wouldn't make my site go down constantly, and after weeks of struggling with Isapi Rewrite taking down two servers (including a brand new 64 bit one with a fresh OS install), I had to do something. 15 minutes after uninstalling Isapi Rewrite and installing Isapi Mod_Rewrite, my site was instantly working fine and has not had a problem since.

No way windows compares to linux. I had my fórum in windows server 2003 R2 standard x64 edition with a amd sempron +3000 processor and changed recently to a Linux CentOS 5 with a Intel(R) Dual Xeon(R) CPU 3075 @ 2.66GHz and that made a diference. Oh now it's fast and reliable.