FTP7 for Windows Server 2008 RC0 is released!

Today Microsoft released the newest version of our FTP server for Windows Server 2008 Release Candidate 0 (RC0)!

Listed below are the links for the download pages for each of the individual installation packages:

I added the following text to my "Installing and Troubleshooting FTP7" walkthrough, but I’m going to repost that here because it sums up nicely what our new FTP server has to offer:

This new FTP service incorporates many new features that enable web authors to publish content better than before, and offers web administrators more security and deployment options.

  • Integration with IIS 7.0: IIS 7.0 has a brand-new administration interface and configuration store, and the new FTP service is tightly integrated with this new design. The old IIS 6 metabase is gone, and a new configuration store that is based on the .NET XML-based *.config format has taken its place. In addition, IIS 7.0 has a new administration tool, and the new FTP server plugs seamlessly into that paradigm.
  • Support for new Internet standards: One of the most significant features in the new FTP server is support for FTP over SSL. The new FTP server also supports other Internet improvements such as UTF8 and IPv6.
  • Shared hosting improvements: By fully integrating into IIS 7.0, the new FTP server makes it possible to host FTP and Web content from the same site by simply adding an FTP binding to an existing Web site. In addition, the FTP server now has virtual host name support, making it possible to host multiple FTP sites on the same IP address. The new FTP server also has improved user isolation, now making it possible to isolate users through per-user virtual directories.
  • Extensibility and custom authentication: The new FTP server supports developer extensibility, making it possible for software vendors to write custom providers for FTP authentication. Microsoft is using this extensibility feature to implement two new methods for using non-Windows accounts for FTP authentication for IIS Managers and .NET Membership.
  • Improved logging support: FTP logging has been enhanced to include all FTP-related traffic, unique tracking for FTP sessions, FTP sub-statuses, additional detail fields in FTP logs, and much more.
  • New supportability features: IIS 7.0 has a new option to display detailed error messages for local users, and the FTP server supports this by providing detailed error responses when logging on locally to an FTP server. The FTP server also logs detailed information using Event Tracing for Windows (ETW), which provides additional detailed information for troubleshooting.

Additional information about new features in FTP7 is available in the "What's New for Microsoft and FTP?" topic on Microsoft's http://www.iis.net/ web site.

The following prerequisites are required to install this new version:

  1. You must be using Windows Server 2008 (code name "Longhorn") Release Candidate 0 (RC0) or later.
  2. Internet Information Services 7.0 must be installed.
  3. If you are going to manage the new FTP server using the IIS 7.0 user interface, the administration tool will need to be installed.
  4. You must install the new FTP server as an administrator.
  5. IIS 7.0 supports a new shared configuration environment, which must be disabled on each server in a web farm before installing the new FTP server for each node. Note: Shared configuration can be re-enabled after the FTP server had been installed.
  6. The FTP server that is shipped on the Windows Server 2008 DVD must be uninstalled before installing the new FTP server.

To help you get started using the new FTP server, the following walkthroughs have been published on the http://www.iis.net/ web site:

Special thanks go to:

  • Jaroslav, Emily, Daniel, Umer – for building it
  • Suditi, Ciprian, Jeong – for testing it
  • Andrew, Carlos, Brian – for making it look pretty
  • Reagan, Claudia, Rick – for documenting it

Thanks!