Running CFMX 6.1 and CFMX 7 Simultaneously Under IIS 6

Ever wanted ColdFusion MX 6.1 and 7.0 running simultaneously under IIS 6? I've always wondered how difficult this would be to set up (without using JRun) but had never tried configuring a server this way before.

Last week though, I was building a new Windows 2003 Server as a development server at my house. I decided I really wanted to get both CFMX 6.1 and CFMX 7.0 running simultaneously so I could easily test code in both versions of the language, without having to toggle the services off and on. Turns out it's not so difficult—all you need to do is configure different "Web Sites" for each version of ColdFusion you want to run. In the below example I use a different ports to differentiate the version of ColdFusion.

1. Create two new Web Sites in IIS—one for the ColdFusion MX 6.1 Administrator and one for your development. Label both of these sites to indicate that they're running CFMX 6.1.
2. Install ColdFusion MX 6.1. Make sure to install use the standard non-J2EE/JRun install. If you want to install using JRun, that's fine, but these directions may not work. You should be able to configure multiple CFMX instances in JRun though.
3. After installation has completed, restart the server if prompted to reboot.
4. Create a new Web Sites in IIS for the ColdFusion MX 7.0 Administrator. This should be a different directory from your CFMX 6.1 Administrator Web Site. This is to make sure you can administrate both versions of ColdFusion. Don't run this on a port/IP address being used by any of your other web sites.
5. Create another new Web Site. This one should point to root directory of the development web site you created in step 1. Make sure to use a description that indicates this site is running CFMX 7. If you want to create this web site on the same IP address as the CFMX 6.1 dev server, make sure to specify a port other than 80. If you don't want to use an alternative port, then set this set up on another IP address.
6. Install ColdFusion MX 7.0. Once again, make sure to install CFMX in the standard non-J2EE/JRun install (this is the first option.) Install the site under IIS 6, but this time specify that the site should be installed on only the ColdFusion MX 7 Administrator site you create—do not install on all servers.
7. Once installation is complete, restart the server if prompted to reboot.
8. Test you Administration sites to make sure that you're getting the correct version of ColdFusion MX to load for each administration site. The version number of ColdFusion (pulled from the Server.ColdFusion scope) should be shown on the screen.
9. Open up the "Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager".
10. Open up your CFMX 7 development web site properties, by right-clicking on web site and choosing "Properties."
11. Go to the "Home Directory" tab.
12. Click on the "Configuration" tab.
13. Under "Application extensions" click on the "Executable Path" column heading to sort by path. The CFMX ISAPI filter should be at or near the top of the list. By default, this site should be mapped to the CFMX 6.1 installation. To change this site to use CFMX 7, double-click on each entry for invoking the jrun_iis6.dll file and change the path to the CFMX 7 directory. If you installed both versions of ColdFusion to the default location (or to the same drive,) you can just go through and change the "CFusionMX\" to "CFusionMX7\". You should have entries for this DLL for the following extensions: cfc, cfm, cfml, jsp, and jws.
14. Under the "Wildcard application maps (order of implementation)" section, double-click on this entry and point the "jrun_iis6_wildcard.dll" to it's CFMX 7 version. Like in the above example, by default you should be able to change the path from "..\CFusionMX\" to "..\CFusionMX7\".
15. Click on "Start > Run" and type "iisreset /restart" and then press [ENTER]. This will ensure that IIS is restarted and all of your changes are registered.
16. In your development web sites's root folder, create a file with the following command: <cfdump var="#server#" /> and save the file.
17. Run the template you create above in both your CFMX 6.1 web site and the CFMX 7.0 web site. If everything went as planned, it should show different versions of ColdFusion being reported.
18. Now you can just switch between IP address or ports (depending on how you configured your development web sites) to switch back and forth between versions of CFMX 6.1.