How to start IIS Express Manually
Once you have IIS Express installed (the easiest way is through Microsoft Web Platform Installer), you will find the executable file in %PROGRAMFILES%\IIS Express (%PROGRAMFILES(x86)%\IIS Express on x64 architectures) and its called iisexpress.exe.
To see all the possible command-line options, just run:
iisexpress /?
and the program detailed help will show up.
If executed without parameters, all the sites defined in the configuration file and marked to run at startup will be launched. An icon in the system tray will show which sites are running.
There are a couple of useful options once you have some sites created in the configuration file (found in %USERPROFILE%\Documents\IISExpress\config\applicationhost.config): the /site and /siteId.
With the first one, you can launch a specific site by name:
iisexpress /site:SiteName
And with the latter, you can launch by specifying the ID:
iisexpress /siteId:SiteId
With this, if IISExpress is launched from the command-line, a list of all the requests made to the server will be shown, which can be quite useful when debugging.
Finally, a site can be launched by specifying the full directory path. IIS Express will create a virtual configuration file and launch the site (remember to quote the path if it contains spaces):
iisexpress /path:FullSitePath
This covers the basic IISExpress usage from the command line.
iisexpress program is responsible for that.
http://www.iis.net/learn/extensions/using-iis-express/running-iis-express-from-the-command-line
From the links the others have posted, I'm not seeing an option. -- I just use powershell to kill it -- you can save this to a Stop-IisExpress.ps1 file:
get-process | where { $_.ProcessName -like "IISExpress" } | stop-process
There's no harm in it -- Visual Studio will just pop a new one up when it wants one.
Or you simply manage it like full IIS by using Jexus Manager for IIS Express, an open source project I work on
https://jexusmanager.com
Start a site and the process will be launched for you.