2003 server - Monday, March 3, 2008 7:32 - 0 Comments

IIS 6 and MIME Types

Serving up files from a web server running IIS 6 can sometimes be problematical.

Serving up files from a web server running IIS 6 can sometimes be problematical. This is because by default IIS 6 will not serve up files that have file extensions with unknown MIME types. This action was taken in IIS 6 to make web servers more secure, but you can allow files with any extension to be served up as follows:

1. Open IIS Manager and open the properties of the IIS node.

2. Click MIME Types, then click New.

3. Type a single asterisk into the Extension box.

4. Type application/octet-stream into the MIME Type box.

5.Click OK.

Now IIS 6 will serve up any file to a client requesting it regardless of the file’s extension. But this approach does this globally for all sites on the server–you can also do it on a per site basis using each website’s properties pages because MIME settings are additive not overriding in IIS 6.

Article written by MyComputerAid.com