Windows Activation Service on Windows 2003

Question

I know (Windows Activation Service) WAS is advertised as part of Windows 2008/Vista/7 but since it appears under .NET 3.5 framework components in Control Panel Windows Components, I was wondering if anyone knows/has managed to run in under Windows 2003 as well.

I'm trying to host a WCF server in WAS under Windows 2003 (written in .NET C#)

Alternatively, does anyone know of any good open source application servers out there that can be used to host .NET servers? (TomCat for .NET?!)

Answer 1

WAS is a part of IIS7, which is available on Vista and Win Server 2008 and up only.

On Win Server 2003, you can either host your WCF service in IIS - which limits you to just http (basicHttp or wsHttp), or - my preferred way - you can host your WCF service yourself.

Typically, you would host your WCF service in a console app for testing/debugging purposes, and then put it inside a Windows NT Service for production - this runs around the clock, with no one logged in, and it supports ALL the WCF bindings (not just http, but also Net.TCP, NetNamedPipe, MSMQ and so on).

Marc

Answer 2

You can always roll your own WCF host. I've used this concept as an example.

http://www.codeproject.com/KB/WCF/generic_wcf_host.aspx

Answer 3

You can host a WCF service in IIS on Windows 2003, if you use basichttpbinding or wshttpbinding.

You could also host a WCF service as a windows service on windows 2003.

WAS is not available on Windows 2003.