Windows 7, IIS 7.5 and Ruby on Rails - basketweaving for the mind - Site Home

Having spent the weekend working on Ruby on Rails with IIS/SQLServer 2008 Express backend via FastCGI, here are some tips to get you going:

The best resource is Ruslan’s post on Rails and IIS7. In fact, go and bookmark this site right now. In Ruslan’s post, the web.config shown is best edited in a text editor.
When installing IIS7.5 on Windows 7 Beta (build 7000) is easy: Using the Control Panels\Programs, Turn Windows Features On/Off. Underneath the Internet Information Services, you need to also install the CGI feature (to get FastCGI)
Windows 7 and URL Rewrite: This forum post http://forums.iis.net/t/1154240.aspx will get you going whilst Windows 7 is in beta
Database connectivity to SQLServer seems to be a common question. Installing the option “sqlserver adaptor” which is now an optional part of ActiveRecord:
```
gem install activerecord-sqlserver-adapter --source=http://gems.rubyonrails.org
```
Connecting via the ODBC adaptor via the SQL Native Client worked, rather than the ADO connector. My connector string looked something like this:
```
development: 
  adapter: sqlserver 
  mode: odbc 
  dsn: Driver={SQL Native Client};Server=.\SQLEXPRESS;Database=xxxxx;
```
As I am installing underneath the IIS7 root directory (that is: http://server/myapp) there are 3 small Rails tweaks required inform the application all the goodies are in a subdirectory:

in config/environment.rb, the header, define a global variable:
```
PATH_PREFIX = '/myapp'
```
in config/environment.rb, in the Initializer, set the asset home directory:
```
Rails::Initializer.run do |config|
    config.action_controller.asset_host = PATH_PREFIX
```
in config/routes.rb, ActionController::Routing::Routes.draw:
```
  map.connect PATH_PREFIX + '/:controller/:action/:id'
  map.connect PATH_PREFIX + '/:controller/:action/:id.:format'
end
```