Setting Up Your Computer for Web Hosting or Script Development on a WINXP Machine from The Graphic Design Forum

INSTALLING INTERNET INFORMATION SERVICES (IIS)

Have your Windows CD in your drive or, with computers with the Windows install on the Hard drive, do nothing.

1) In CONTROL PANEL, go to ADD/REMOVE PROGRAMS
2) Go to ADD/REMOVE WINDOWS COMPONENTS
3) Find INTERNET INFORMATION SERVICES, check the box and push DETAILS
4) DO NOT install SMTP(Simple Mail Transport Protocol) as you probably will not need it unless you are planning to actually host mail forms on your local site.
5) DO INSTALL Frontpage 2000 extensions if you want to use Frontpage to edit your sites or use webbots to create forms or includes pages (we can do this another way though)
6) Add FTP services.
7) Click on WORLD WIDE WEB SERVICE and go to DETAILS.
8) Turn off Scripts and Printer virtual directories. You will not need these and having a scripts directory can open you up to nasty things.

- IIS will begin to install itself. If you have a firewall, you may get a few warnings, but let them through. You may also get warnings if you have AntiSpyware installed. This is expected because you are opening port 80(HTTP), 21(FTP) on your new server. This will take some time. Have patience.

9) You will be asked to restart your computer. Do so.
10) Now you should have your web services running. To test it, open Internet explorer (or Firefox) and type "Localhost" in the address bar. You should get a page (or two) that say, "Your Web service is now running." and/or "Getting Started"

FINDING YOUR WEB SITE

11) Now you will have 2 IP addresses that will be able to take you to this page without having to type "localhost" but they will not work untill you create a web page because the default page is called iisstart.asp

12) Go to c:\inetpub\wwwroot and make a simple html page that you KNOW will work called "index.htm" or "Default.htm" or "Default.asp" Save it in this directory. You may also create a new page using Frontpage. This will be covered down a bit further.

13) Go back to your web browser and type in 127.0.0.1 and you should see your page.

DROPPING TO DOS TO FIND YOUR IP ADDRESS

14) Go to START->RUN and type CMD. You should get a DOS window.
15) Type in IPCONFIG and hit ENTER
16) Your IP address will be displayed in the information that appears. Remember this. Write it down. Your IP address may change if you are on DSL, Cable or Dial-up.

17) If your IP address begins with 192.168.0.xxx then only computers on your local area network will be able to see your pages untill you change settings on your router or modem.
18) If your IP address is anything other than 192.168.0.xxx then the world should be able to see you.

VIEWING YOUR WEB PAGES REMOTELY

19) Type in the IP address you found with IPCONFIG. You should see your page.
20) If your address is NOT 192.168.0.xxx then get a friend to see if they can view your page. They should be able to.

22) If you are on a local area network, you should be able to type in the machine name to acces the website as well. Let's say your machine's name is "DOOFUS". Go will be able to go to a web browser on another machine on your network and type in HTTP://DOOFUS to see you pages. This is great for in-office web applications.

* If your IP ADDRESS is 192.168.0.xxx - then you will still be able to use this on your local area network, but to get the outside word to see this, you will need to set your router for port forwarding or enter virtual server settings. You may also need to open your firewall to outside machines on port 80.

MAKING YOUR FIRST PAGE WITH FRONTPAGE

21) Open Frontpage. Go to open SITE. Where it says "Site Name" type "HTTP:\\localhost"
22) File-> New ->Blank Page
23) Create your page and save it as "index.htm", "default.htm" or "default.asp".
24) Test it out by typing in the IP address again.

DEFAULT PAGES

25) Go to CONTROL PANEL -> ADMINISTRATIVE TOOLS -> Internet information Services.
26) You should be able to drill down in the left column to your web site whish should be called "Default Web Site"
27) Higlight it and RIGHT CLICK. Select PROPERTIES.
THIS IS WHERE YOU DO A LOT OF IMPORTANT STUFF TO YOUR WEBSITE SO REMEMBER THIS.

28) Go to DOCUMENTS. These are the file names of default pages that IIS will serve when you open the site in your browser. If your Home PAGE is not called one of these, you can add it here or rename your home page.

DEVELOPING WITH ASP
When you installed IIS, support for Active Server Pages (ASP) was also installed.
1) In Frontpage, or Notepad open your homepage. In code view, enter <% response.write "Hello %>
2) Save this page. It MUST have an .ASP extention to parse/work.
3) Test it in your browser. Congratulations, you just wrote your first .ASP script.
4) Anything between <% and %> gets parsed by your ASP engine. You can write applications and test ASP scripts on your new development server.
5) HEADERS can be used accross your entire site by using  and having a header.asp file which has your navigation graphics and links. These are called "INCLUDES"

INSTALLING AND DEVELOPING WITH PHP

1) Go to http://www.php.net/downloads.php nd run the PHP installer. This should automatically set up IIS to run PHP. I've never had it work properly.
2) open your web site and create a new page called SOMTHING.PHP
3) Anything between <? and ?> is PHP code. In code view, enter <? echo 'Hello'; ?>
4) You can create headers and includes by using <? include("header.php") ?> in your .PHP pages. This page will not automatically load when you go to your web site because it is not in your list of default documents, but it doesn't have to. Type in http://localhost/something.php Congratulations, you just ran your first PHP script.

5) If the PHP does not work and only shows you code, go to IIS Administration -> Default WEBSITE -> rightclick and hit Properties. Then go to HOME DIRECTORY and where it says "execute permissions" and "scripts" - Hit CONFIGURATION. Where it says EXECUTABLE, brows to where you installed PHP and link it to the PHP executable file. Add .PHP as the extension and you should be in business.

IMPORTANT NOTE BY AXOI

With Service Pack 2, all anonymous access is turned off. With an XP installation where the IIS installation was after the patch it won't allow you access to your own projects. Go into IIS mmc panel and change the whole site to allow anonymous. Also if you right click on folders and go to sharing... and setup a webshare you'll have to go into the IIS panel again and turn on the anonymous access option again.

OTHER OPTIONS:

AXOI reccommended Apache ( http://www.apache.org )

ULYSSES recommended EASYPHP

(EasyPHP is a total package with apache server, mysql and PHP all rolled into one install)

( http://www.easyphp.org/ )