Q:

Best lightweight web server (only static content) for Windows

I got application server running in Windows – IIS6.0 with Zend Server to execute PHP. I am looking for lightweight static content only web server on this same machine which will relive IIS form handling static content and increase performance.
It need to be only static content web server – maximum small and maximum effective – lighttpd seems too big because allow to FastCGI.
I am looking for: Windows, static content only, fast, and lightweight.
I am using Windows Server 2003.

A:

You can use Python as a quick way to host static content. On Windows, there are many options for running Python, I've personally used CygWin and ActivePython.  
To use Python as a simple HTTP server just change your working directory to the folder with your static content and type python -m SimpleHTTPServer 8000, everything in the directory will be available at http:/localhost:8000/ 
Python 3
To do this with Python, 3.4.1 (and probably other versions of Python 3), use the http.server module:
python -m http.server <PORT>
# or possibly:
python3 -m http.server <PORT>

# example:
python -m http.server 8080

On Windows:
py -m http.server <PORT>

A:

Have a look at mongoose:

single executable
very small memory footprint
allows multiple worker threads
easy to install as service
configurable with a configuration
file if required

A:

The smallest one I know is lighttpd.

Security, speed, compliance, and flexibility -- all of these describe lighttpd (pron. lighty) which is rapidly redefining efficiency of a webserver; as it is designed and optimized for high performance environments. With a small memory footprint compared to other web-servers, effective management of the cpu-load, and advanced feature set (FastCGI, SCGI, Auth, Output-Compression, URL-Rewriting and many more) lighttpd is the perfect solution for every server that is suffering load problems. And best of all it's Open Source licensed under the revised BSD license.

Main site: http://www.lighttpd.net/

Edit: removed Windows version link, now a spam/malware plugin site.

