How to Turn Off the Cookie Generator on Site Server 3.0 (293475)

SUMMARY

A computer running Site Server 3.0 generates cookies to create more accurate visitor logs. However, you may want to prevent Site Server 3.0 from generating cookies on site visitors' computers. To turn off the property that generates cookies, follow these steps:

Open the Internet Service Manager MMC.
Right-click Your Computer Name.
Click Properties.
Under Master Properties, click Edit.
Click the ISAPI Filters tab.
Delete the SiteServerLogging ISAPI filter.
Stop the IISADMIN service.
Restart the IISADMIN service.

Note: If you delete the ISAPI filter from the settings but you do not stop and then restart the IISADMIN service, Site Server continues to generate cookies. Typically, when a DLL is loaded in a process (executable), the DLL stays loaded until the process is stopped. ISAPI filters reside in the Inetinfo.exe process. If you stop the W3SVC service, Web services stop but the Inetinfo.exe process does not close.

MORE INFORMATION

Site Server can use cookies for multiple purposes. Before you prevent Site Server from generating cookies, make sure that you do not need cookies for any features that you want to use.

The SITESERVER cookie is sent to anyone who visits any Web site that is running on a server where Site Server has been installed. This comes from the SiteServerLogging filter that is installed in the Master Web properties. This ISAPI filter is mentioned in "Configuring Your Web Server for Extended Logging," on page 5 of the Getting Started with Site Server Analysis manual. The filter is described further in the Analysis Readme file. By default, this filter is installed on Internet Information Services (IIS) when you install Site Server. The filter is named Site Server User Identification Filter. You can locate this filter under the Analysis tree during setup. The actual file name is Mss_log.dll, and the ISAPI filter name in IIS is SiteServerLogging.

The Site Server User Identification Filter generates and distributes unique cookies of the type SITESERVER=ID=<GUID> for each user. If you turn off this filter, you lose persistent cookie generation. Site Server Membership uses cookies. Therefore, whether you use HTML Forms Auth or AutoCookie, you will use cookies and you must have the Site Server User Identification Filter.