I'm getting ready to upgrade my Adobe CF servers from 2018 to 2021. I just watched Charlie's presentation on CFMeetup on the many ways to run/install CF, but wanted to get more input from the community on the best way to handle this. Here are my requirements/environment: • Windows 2019 / IIS 10 (and CF connector) • CF Standard license • Lockdown tool run to secure CF • Run as Windows Server under Windows domain account • Installing on same server as CF 2018 (upgrading in place, will remove 2018 when 2021 is running) • Minimal CF modules needed (Admin, SQL Server, CFMail, CFHttp) • Prefer not to install the full installation with all modules and then have to uninstall most of the modules I'm thinking the ZIP install might be a viable starting point, but need to make sure I can get all the other pieces (IIS connector especially) working. Input from the community is greatly appreciated (please use a thread)!

@cfvonner You know, 2023 is out now, right 😆

Yeah, not going to jump on that until the dust settles a bit. 😄

If it's any consolation, all our major Ortus library test suites are passing on ACF 2023.

That's good to know. I might consider jumping to 2023, but I usually wait until the first update comes out on new releases (unless there are substantial outstanding bugs yet to be addressed).

I'm actually not aware of any big regressions, but I'm not sure if that's just from lack of uptake yet.

Darn, I left out a significant detail in my OP: I have a CF Standard license (which precludes using CommandBox).

😕

Well, Standard is about 1/3 (or less) than the price of Enterprise, and I only have one application running behind our firewall, for employees only (and it runs just fine on a virtual machine with only two cores).

Non-profits that don't need Enterprise run Standard 🙂

Carl, getting back to your OP, do you realize that you can just "uninstall all" in the CF Admin? And you can do that with cfpm as well. Just clarifying. As for whether you can/should "just use the zip", there are pros and cons. I didn't get into those in the talk, as there were SO many "excursions" I could have taken for each of the several "ways to run CF or Lucee". I had to really condense things to fit into that hour. The docs page for the zip installer talks about some of the challenges you may face (like the vc++ redistrib, the add-on services), which are all solvable. But you asked about the IIS connector "especially": to be clear, yes, that works with the zip install, no different at all from a full install. Any other concerns you have in mind? Should everyone use the zip? No. Should no one? Of course not. It's different strokes, for different folks. Maybe I should do a future talk on the zip "install" approach, where I can elaborate more. Anyway, I know you put this out here for others to chime in. Since no one had yet (directly), I wanted to give you at least this to chew on. Let's see if others may follow suit.

No, I didn't know about the "uninstall all". That's awesome.

See also the Adobe portal post with a bit more on the "zip install experience": https://coldfusion.adobe.com/2020/12/coldfusion-2021-install-experience/

My main goal is to keep the installation as light as possible. So far, it seems like the easiest path for me is the GUI install and then "uninstall all" packages and reinstall the few that I need.

that (full/gui install) will be "easiest" for some, yes. Even "light" is a subjective term. I've not done a comparison of the size of the folders comparing a zip install with no modules and a full install with all modules removed. 🙂 If you may do it, I'm sure some here would be interested to hear. Indeed, I do think that some put too much stock in the zip install as being "inherently lighter", so they may find your use of that term here contradictory. But I sense you mean "light" as in "less of a hassle", and I agree that for those familiar with the full install that may seem "simpler". Then there's the silent install (available for both the full installer and zip's cfinstall process--with the latter having only several config items). Some may think such silent installs to be "simpler" or "lighter" for them, certainly at least better-suited to automation. And really, that's where for most the zip install may have the most value (ease of automation, compared to the full install with or without its silent install). It just seems unfortunate to me that some parts of the CF docs and some blog posts either suggest or leave the impression that it's the "better" (or even only) option. (For a time, in 2021, it even said there would be no more full installer. That chatter went away.)

Don't the GUI installers allow you to choose the modules you want, so he could simply deselect everything there instead of needing to uninstall it all later? (It's been a hot minute since I've run through the GUI installer...)

By "lighter", I mostly mean the running memory/CPU footprint after all the installation steps are done. Right now with CF 2018, I know a fair amount of memory is wasted on features I don't need, and startup time is impacted by loading all the those extra things. I'm looking forward to reducing the memory/CPU footprint and startup times with CF 2021/2023 by eliminating unneeded modules.

And just for comparison, the CommandBox CF Engine bundle no modules at all (that's the way Adobe made their WAR) so it's up to you to install what you need after.

Brad, no, the full (gui or console) installers do NOT ask what modules you want (or don't want). But again the CF admin offers that, as does the CFPM tool.

I must be thinking of the add-on services

Brad, the cf zip "install" is what DOES come with NO modules by default. again, one can then add them with cfpm or the admin. (And with the Adobe CF Docker image, which also has no modules by default, you can also add them with env vars.)

Seems like a missed opportunity there in the GUI installers

brad, yes, the full installer asks if you want to add the add-on services. The zip's cfinstall script does not. And agreed on the last point...but I think the whole point is that they felt the full installer was getting SO long. I suspect they think most users of it would not want ANOTHER prompt--though we could argue it would let them get a smaller resulting install, sure.

ANOTHER prompt

If it were me, I'd add a single installer screen with two radio buttons: • "install recommended modules" (default) • "choose modules to install" They can just click "next" to move right past it, or if they change to the "choose" option, then show a list control with checkboxes next to each with a "de/select all" helper. It would add minimal effort to the GUI process and also allow people who wanted more control to quickly customize what they installed.

I'd agree. Sounds like a great tracker ticket feature request. If you may add it, let us know here and we can vote it up. 🙂