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With the release of Coldfusion 9, Adobe has officially discontinued CF support for Windows 2000, this just prior to the operating system's official EOL.  For what it's worth, it appears that the policy change was not by design.  According to the blog post, "Coldfusion 9 Initial Reactions:  Installer Woes," Adobe's official list of system requirements included Windows 2000 until problems were reported.  Then, rather than produce a fix or publish a workaround in the Adobe Knowledgebase as would be typical, the company simply removed the OS from the list.  This is evidenced by so many VARs still showing the original, uncorrected compatibility list.  In another article (which I can't seem to locate), an Adobe support rep offered suggestions for circumventing the installer, but with the caveat that any such installation, even if successful, would be "unsupported" by Adobe.  That's scary if you plan to go live with CF9 on a Windows 2000 server.  What might the next service pack do to your installation?  But then, if you're reading this article, you're more scared by the expense of upgrading your OS and, no doubt, your "old-skool" server hardware.  In this economy, non-essential upgrades are a luxury some of us simply can't afford.

I'm happy to report that ColdFusion 9 can indeed be installed on Windows 2000 with IIS.  Success was the product of two separate Adobe TechNotes (and a little experience with prior CF versions):

• Install ColdFusion 8 Silently
• ColdFusion MX:  Manually Configuring the Web Server Connector for ColdFusion MX Standalone

Understand, however, that these TechNotes predate ColdFusion 9 and do not address this challenge directly.  For clarity, I have parsed out the relevant bits and traced my exact steps below.

Needless to say, it is merely apparent at this time that my installation was successful - the ColdFusion Administrator has launched and no errors are apparent in any server logs or web pages.  Still, there may yet be gremlins to discover.  I will post any such discoveries here and encourage others to do the same.  It's worth repeating that Adobe has declared installations of Coldfusion 9 on Windows 2000 to be "not supported."  Likewise, I offer no guarantees.  Proceed at your own risk.

Part 1:  ColdFusion 9 Command-Line Installation

Coldfusion 9's GUI installer fails on Windows 2000, getting itself stuck in a loop while trying to install the Microsoft VC++ 2008 Runtime.  You can break out of this loop by closing the window, but then the installation fails nonetheless.  The workaround is a command-line, or "silent" installation.  Follow these steps to perform a silent Coldfusion 9 installation:

1. With Notepad, create a new text file, with the following content.  [For an explanation of these and other allowed parameters and acceptable values, visit the aforementioned Adobe TechNote, "Install ColdFusion 8 Silently" and perhaps also "Installing ColdFusion MX 7 Silently."]  These are the values I used for installation on Windows 2000 w/ IIS 5.
   
   

   INSTALLER_UI=SILENT
   SILENT_LICENSE_MODE=trial
   SILENT_SERIAL_NUMBER=
   SILENT_PREV_SERIAL_NUMBER=
   SILENT_INSTALLER_TYPE=standalone
   SILENT_INSTALL_ODBC=true
   SILENT_INSTALL_VERITY=true
   SILENT_INSTALL_SAMPLES=false
   SILENT_INSTALL_JNBRIDGE=true
   SILENT_INSTALL_FOLDER=C:\\ColdFusion9
   SILENT_WEBROOT_FOLDER=C:\\Inetpub\\wwwroot
   SILENT_ADMIN_PASSWORD=password
   SILENT_ENABLE_RDS=false
   

2. Save the file as "CF.PROPERTIES" and close.
3. Copy the ColdFusion 9 installer (ColdFusion_9_WWE_win.exe) and CF.PROPERTIES file to C:\Temp.
4. From the Command Prompt, navigate to C:\Temp and launch the installer with the following command:
   
   

   COLDFUSION_9_WWE_WIN -f CF.PROPERTIES

5. Give the installer plenty of time to finish.  In silent mode, one might be tempted to restart the server before installation completes.  If you'd like to verify that your installation was successfully completed, check out C:\Coldfusion9\Adobe_ColdFusion_9_InstallLog.log.

Part 2:  Install ColdFusion 9's ISAPI Connector

Having completed basic installation, we must now connect Coldfusion to IIS.  Unfortunately, ColdFusion 9's Web Server Configuration Tool also does not work on Windows 2000.  What's more, the command-line installer has not generated the necessary JRun files and directories necessary for manual configuration, making the next steps tedious, even if you're familiar with this exercise from prior versions of CF.  Here goes:

1. In Notepad, open C:\ColdFusion9\runtime\servers\coldfusion\SERVER-INF\jrun.xml.
2. Locate the entry labeled "ProxyService".
3. A few lines down, locate and modify the "deactivated" attribute to read "false," as follows.  [Be careful - there are three separate instances of "deactivated" in this file.  Make sure you modify the correct one.]
   
   

   <attribute name="deactivated">false</attribute>

4. A few more lines down, locate and modify the "port" attribute to read "51800," as follows.
   
   

   <attribute name="port">51800</attribute>
   

5. Save and close the jrun.xml file.
6. Create the following directory:
   
   

   C:\ColdFusion9\runtime\lib\wsconfig\1

7. With Notepad, create a new text file, with the following content:
   
   

   1=IIS,1,false,""
   1.srv=localhost,"coldfusion"
   1.cfmx=true,C:/inetpub/wwwroot
   

8. Save the file as C:\ColdFusion9\runtime\lib\wsconfig\wsconfig.properties
9. Extract jrun.dll and jrunwin32.dll from C:\ColdFusion9\runtime\lib\wsconfig.jar
   1. To extract JAR files, you can use Java's JDK.  Download from http://java.sun.com/javase/downloads/index.jsp and install.
   2. Locate JAR.EXE.  On my server, it's in C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.6.0_18\bin.
   3. In a Command Prompt window, navigate to C:\Temp and enter the following commands (adjusting for the actual location of your JAR.EXE file):
      
      

      "C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.6.0_18\bin\jar.exe" xf C:\ColdFusion9\runtime\lib\wsconfig.jar connectors/installers/intel-win/prebuilt/jrunwin32.dll
      "C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.6.0_18\bin\jar.exe" xf C:\ColdFusion9\runtime\lib\wsconfig.jar connectors/isapi/intel-win/prebuilt/jrun.dll
      copy connectors\installers\intel-win\prebuilt\jrunwin32.dll C:\ColdFusion9\runtime\lib\wsconfig
      copy connectors\isapi\intel-win\prebuilt\jrun.dll C:\ColdFusion9\runtime\lib\wsconfig\1
      

10. With Notepad, create a new text file, with the following content:
    
    

    proxyservers=127.0.0.1:51800

11. Save the file as C:\ColdFusion9\runtime\lib\wsconfig\1\jrunserver.store.
12. With Notepad, create a new text file, with the following content:
    
    

    verbose=false
    scriptpath=/JRunScripts/jrun.dll
    serverstore=C:/ColdFusion9/runtime/lib/wsconfig/1/jrunserver.store
    bootstrap=127.0.0.1:51800
    apialloc=false
    ssl=false
    ignoresuffixmap=false
    #errorurl=<optionally redirect to this URL on errors>
    

13. Save the file as C:\ColdFusion9\runtime\lib\wsconfig\1\jrun.ini.
14. Using the IIS Management Console, add the JRun Connector Filter to the IIS Master Properties.
    1. Launch the IIS Management Console, at Start > Programs > Administrative Tools > Internet Services Manager
    2. Select (right-click) the web server > Properties > Master Properties > WWW Service > Edit...
    3. Select the "ISAPI Filter" tab and press the "Add" button.
       • Filter Name:  JRun Connector Filter
       • Executable:  C:\ColdFusion9\runtime\lib\wsconfig\1\jrun.dll
    4. Select the "Home Directory" tab and press the "Configuration..." button.
    5. Add extensions for .jsp, .jws, .cfm, .cfml, .cfc, .cfr, and .cfswf, with the following parameters:
       • Executable:  C:\ColdFusion9\runtime\lib\wsconfig\1\jrun.dll
       • Verbs:  All verbs
       • Script engine:  yes
       • Check that file exists:  yes  [Necessary if you specify site-specific 404 handlers in IIS.  Otherwise, if you use CF's server-wide Missing Template Handler, no.]
    6. For each IIS Web Site with ColdFusion templates, add a JRunScripts virtual directory.
       1. Select (right-click) an IIS Web Site > New > Virtual Directory
          • Alias:  JRunScripts
          • Directory:  C:\ColdFusion9\runtime\lib\wsconfig\1\
          • Read:  yes
          • Run Scripts:  yes
          • Execute:  yes
          • Write:  no
          • Browse:  no
       2. Repeat for each IIS Web Site
15. Restart your server.

That should do it.  Point your web browser to the IIS server's default website (e.g., http://localhost/cfide/administrator/index.cfm) to complete the ColdFusion 9 installation wizard and access the ColdFusion Administrator.

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