Sometimes I think that Microsoft does things so as not to piss off their ‘valued business partners’. A great example of this is with IIS, the Web Server built into Windows Server 2003. It has compression built in to reduce the bandwidth required for Web pages to download. So, do you think that this is enabled by default? Why, NO! Why would microsoft do that? So I enabled it. Nothing happens. Very strange.

Ahh… Do some searching. I found a page on DotNetJunkies that described how to enable compression on ASP.NET files. This is a real pain to do. Microsoft is loves to tell you that it is so much easier to administer their server because it has a GUI. But you cannot use it to do the important stuff. I had to edit the config file to add the ASPX and ASMX file extensions.

Doing some more reading I found another trick… I can change the comrpession level, and make it 9 instead of 0 for dynamic files. That is, for scripts. Does this all make a difference? Yes. I think so. Even on my LAN it is faster. I was slightly surprised by this. So why did I make the comment earlier about microsoft protecting business partners… Seems that microsoft sends people to one of their partners (port80software) who has their own GUI and software for handling compression. For once Microsoft is not trying to kill off a vendor… Perhaps in this case they should… It would be easier for us users.