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Connecting ColdFusion MX 7 To 64-bit IIS 6

Home » Connecting ColdFusion MX 7 To 64-bit IIS 6

First of all, no, ColdFusion is not yet supported on 64-bit Windows. And I don’t have a date for when it will be.
But, ColdFusion MX 7 can indeed run on 64-bit Windows (I have been doing so for a long time now). The trickier part is getting ColdFusion to talk to 64-bit IIS 6 (which by default only talks to 64-bit apps and connectors).
A Microsoft document entitled Configuring IIS to Run 32-bit Applications on 64-bit Windows (IIS 6.0) explains that Windows Server 2003, SP1 enables IIS 6 to run 32-bit Web applications on 64-bit Windows using WOW64 (the Windows-32-on-Windows-64 compatibility layer), and provides the instructions needed to enable this functionality.

14 responses to “Connecting ColdFusion MX 7 To 64-bit IIS 6”

  1. phillip.nacelli Avatar
    phillip.nacelli

    Ben,
    Thanks for the post, it’s good to know that this is not a dead end option until CF supports 64-bit.. I had tried this about a month ago and was able to install CF on the server (win 2k3 64-bit)… however the next stumbling block was the JDBC.. we couldn’t get a datasource to run (MS SQL Server 2k) .. in the CF Administrator.. would you or anyone have any documentation on this issue?
    Once again.. thanks..
    Cheers..

  2. Gary Fenton Avatar
    Gary Fenton

    Given the choice of installing 32bit or 64bit Windows 2003 to run purely as a IIS/CF web server, which one should I choose? There must be a performance hit if CF uses the WOW64 compatability layer? Is going for 32bit the best choice?

  3. Aitor Ibarra Avatar
    Aitor Ibarra

    But Sun has a 64bit JVM for 64-bit Windows, right? What else would you need to run CF on 64bit? The 2GB per process limitation of 32bit Windows can be a real problem for some users, esp with those using lots of memory variables, query caching etc on sites with many visitors.
    If you run multiple instances of CF on 64bit Windows, would each instance be able to get 2GB?

  4. Rob Gonda Avatar
    Rob Gonda

    cscript.exe adsutil.vbs set W3SVC/AppPools/Enable32BitAppOnWin64 “true” will not work, you have to pass true as a bool, not a string.
    cscript.exe adsutil.vbs set W3SVC/AppPools/Enable32BitAppOnWin64 true

  5. Bill Gordon Avatar
    Bill Gordon

    Have you been able to get RDS to work with CF on a 64-bit server? We have not. When we try to get a connection using HomeSite, we get an alert popup box titled "Remote Server Operation Failu…" that says "HTTP Error :400".
    CF 7.0.2 is running on Windows 2003 Server x64.
    Thanks. -bg

  6. Christopher Taylor Avatar
    Christopher Taylor

    What about CF v5? we’ve got a new x64 server but still want to use CF v5………is there going to be any help for us???

  7. Ben Forta Avatar
    Ben Forta

    Christopher, it may work, but you’re on your own. CF5 is over 7 years old and is no longer a supported product, we are not going to be adding functionality to that release.
    — Ben

  8. Hans Avatar
    Hans

    Thanks for the tip! It has been very helpful in getting my CF 7 server running on a hosted Win2k3 x64 server

  9. Dave Melton Avatar
    Dave Melton

    When you install it on Windows 2003 64-bit OS? Did you use the standard installer or have to go some other route? Also, does the installer install the 32 bit JVM that seems to be required?

  10. Sven Avatar
    Sven

    Hmm, CF 7 was working, then I installed the 7.02 upgrade and now it’s broke again.

  11. Eric Avatar
    Eric

    I am trying to install coldfusion 8 on ms Server 2003 R2 and what I get is a 401.3 error : Unauthorized Due to ACL on Resource for ALL the website on the server. When I remove coldfusion, all is back to normal. I tried the cscript.exe adsutil.vbs set W3SVC/AppPools/Enable32BitAppOnWin64 true trick. It did not help at all. Any idea?

  12. mgwalk Avatar
    mgwalk

    What about cf8 on the new IIS 7 and server 2008 64bit?

  13. Ben Forta Avatar
    Ben Forta
  14. Eric Avatar
    Eric

    In fact, there was 2 IUSR and IWAM accounts on the server making IIS and Coldfusion not understanding which one to take. According what I saw on IIS 7 inventing a group having the anonymous internet accounts, they have solved this issue.
    By the way, the solution of my situation was just to delete the account not having the computer name in it.

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