My ColdFusion MX lab
I built this because I had always known of ColdFusion MX and finally wanted to see what it was actually like.
This is not a recreation of an environment I used years ago. I never used ColdFusion when MX 7 was current. I put the lab together in December 2025 as a bit of software archaeology.
The setup uses ColdFusion MX 7, Windows Server 2003 with IIS, and Dreamweaver 8. The point is to explore a period-correct version of the platform and compare it with the current CFML world I am now starting to learn through Lucee.
It stays isolated
Everything in this stack is long out of support, so it is a lab only. It has no reason to be exposed to the public internet or trusted with real data.
What is in it
- ColdFusion MX 7
- Dreamweaver 8
- Windows Server 2003 and IIS
- a throwaway database with sample data
- VM snapshots so I can experiment without caring if I break it
Why I still keep it
Old web software is interesting to me, and this gives me a concrete way to understand a platform I only knew by name when it was actually current. It also makes the differences in modern CFML much easier to notice.