Member Avatar for swaters86

Hey guys, I am a graphic designer and web developer at work and sometimes I have to bring my work home with me or sometimes I like to start my own personal web projects.

I would like to have a Mac pro as my home computer, but I would also like to be able to run Visual Studio and the IIS web server on it. I hear this is not possible in the Mac OS environment? is it possible to run IIS and visual studio(or a mac alternative) on a windows partition and still be able to upload files to it from my Mac partition. Or how feasible would it be to buy a cheaper computer running windows and install IIS on it and have my MAC connect to it?

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Dani AI

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Short summary and practical next steps based on the thread (and the update from who bought a Mac Pro and Parallels):

Running Visual Studio + IIS while primarily using macOS is best solved one of three ways, depending on priorities: run Windows in a VM for convenience and quick testing (good when Parallels/VMware are already available), run Windows natively via Boot Camp for full hardware parity with IIS and maximum build/perf, or run a separate Windows test box (physical or cloud VM) to isolate licensing, networking and production parity. Each approach has tradeoffs: VM = convenience, Boot Camp = fidelity, separate box = isolation.

Practical workflows and gotchas not covered earlier: treat source control as the canonical bridge (git/SVN) rather than copying partitions; this avoids fragile filesystem-driver workarounds. For direct file access prefer network shares (SMB/SFTP) or a neutral shared volume (exFAT) instead of relying on HFS+ drivers inside Windows. For an IIS instance in a VM that needs to be reachable: use bridged networking (or forward ports if NAT), verify Windows Firewall rules and IIS site bindings (not just localhost), and allocate sufficient RAM/CPU to the VM so Visual Studio builds are not painfully slow. For deployment, prefer secure transfer (SFTP/Web Deploy) over plain FTP as suggested earlier.

Longer-term options and cautions: many modern ASP.NET workloads are cross-platform (ASP.NET Core, VS Code, Visual Studio for Mac) and can be developed and hosted on macOS without IIS; keeping a Windows install only for IIS-specific or legacy features is a practical approach. Always use a properly licensed Windows install for development, and keep any dev IIS instances firewalled so unfinished sites are not exposed to the internet.

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Member Avatar for samarudge

I dont know much about IIS but I know that on XP Pro you get IIS but it is limited to 5 connections at the same time. You could probably install XP pro as a partition on your mac and run an FTP server on the windows side. This should let them communicate with each other but I dont know.
Regards,
Sam Rudge

Member Avatar for Ancient Dragon

I dont know much about IIS but I know that on XP Pro you get IIS but it is limited to 5 connections at the same time. You could probably install XP pro as a partition on your mac and run an FTP server on the windows side. This should let them communicate with each other but I dont know.
Regards,
Sam Rudge

Now how to you expect to run xP in one partition and MAC in the other at the same time?? To get more than 5 connections on XP you need to buy XP Server with the number of connections you want. I don't know the current costs but a few years ago Microsoft charged something like $10,000.00USD for unlimited number of connections.

As for running IIS and VC on MAC -- forget it. Get another computer for that because MAC runs on top of linux.

Member Avatar for John A

I would like to have a Mac pro as my home computer, but I would also like to be able to run Visual Studio and the IIS web server on it. I hear this is not possible in the Mac OS environment?

You can't run them natively inside Mac OS X, however, there's several options. You can run it in a virtual environment, such as VMWare or Parallels. This will allow you to run Windows within the Mac environment without the need to reboot. The performance of Windows inside a virtual environment is affected, however. You can also install Windows onto a separate partition and dual-boot your machine.

is it possible to run IIS and visual studio(or a mac alternative) on a windows partition and still be able to upload files to it from my Mac partition.

HFS+ support isn't natively present in Windows. You can however get software such as MacDrive, which provides drivers that allow Windows to recognize HFS+ partitions and read/write to them.

To get more than 5 connections on XP you need to buy XP Server with the number of connections you want. I don't know the current costs but a few years ago Microsoft charged something like $10,000.00USD for unlimited number of connections.

If this is used purely for development purposes, more than five connections isn't needed anyway.

Get another computer for that because MAC runs on top of linux.

OS X actually runs on Darwin, which is derived from FreeBSD 5 and the Mach 3.0 kernel.

Member Avatar for swaters86

Sorry , I haven't been paying attention to this thread. I did end up buying a Mac Pro (AND IT IS NICE!) and a copy of Parrels. I think I will install XP on it someday and hopefully get IIS working. I will keep y'all updated on my progress.

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