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Enable classic ASP support on Windows Azure

The easiest way to enable classic ASP support on Windows Azure is by using a start-up task. Start-up tasks were added in the SDK 1.3 release and allow you to configure a virtual machine instance when it’s created.

So we will define a start-up task to set up the webrole and enable classic ASP support. To do this, open the ServiceDefinition.csdef file in the Windows Azure project, locate the WebRole element in the service model and inside it, insert a Startup element with a single task, as shown below.

<ServiceDefinition name="CloudService" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/ServiceHosting/2008/10/ServiceDefinition">
<WebRole name="ClassicWebApp">
<Sites>
<Site name="Web">
<Bindings>
<Binding name="HttpIn" endpointName="HttpIn" />
</Bindings>
</Site>
</Sites>
<ConfigurationSettings>
</ConfigurationSettings>
<Endpoints>
<InputEndpoint name="HttpIn" protocol="http" port="80" />
</Endpoints>
<Imports>
<Import moduleName="Diagnostics" />
</Imports>
<Startup>
<Task commandLine="start /w pkgmgr /iu:IIS-ASP" executionContext="elevated" taskType="simple" />
</Startup>
</WebRole>
</ServiceDefinition>

Note: The Startup element contains one or more Tasks that the role executes during its bootstrapping process. Each task includes a commandLine parameter that defines a program or a batch file to execute.

Tasks can specify an executionContext that allows them to run in the same security context as the role or with administrative privileges. Because registering a COM component requires writing information to a registry hive that is not accessible to regular users, the registration task uses an elevated execution context.

Additionally, tasks can specify a type that determines how they are scheduled. The following types are available:

  • Simple: the startup process launches the task and does not proceed until the task completes.
  • Background: the startup process launches the task in the background and then continues.
  • Foreground: similar to a background task, but the role cannot shut down until all the foreground tasks have ended.
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