Changing Your Home Directory

The PWS default settings are suitable for quickly and easily publishing your content. All you need to do is copy your files to the C:\Inetpub\Wwwroot directory. However, if you have a previously existing site with pages that contain path links to other files on your hard disk, you may find it more convenient to change the default home directory.

To change your home directory

1. Open Personal Web Manager and click the Advanced icon on the sidebar.
2. In the Advanced window, double-click the computer icon at the top of the tree, and then click Edit Properties.
3. In the Change Directory Properties box, type in the path and name of the directory you want to set as the home directory.
4. Set the directory access permissions by checking Read, Execute, or Scripts.
   • Read   Read permission enables Web clients to read or download files stored in a home directory or a virtual directory. If a client sends a request for a file that is in a directory without Read permission, the Web server returns an error message. Generally, you should give directories containing information to publish (HTML files, for example) Read permission. You should disable Read permission for directories containing Common Gateway Interface (CGI) applications and Internet Server Application Program Interface (ISAPI) dynamic link libraries (DLLs) to prevent clients from downloading the application files. By default, all directories created during setup have Read and Scripts permission.
   • Execute   Execute permission enables any application to run in this directory, including script engines and Windows NT binaries (.dll and .exe files). For security purposes, do not give content folders Execute permission.
   • Scripts    Enables a script engine to run in this directory without having Execute permission set. Use Script permission for directories that contain ASP scripts, Internet Database Connector (IDC) scripts, or other scripts. Script permission is safer than Execute permission because you can limit the applications that can be run in the directory. If a client sends a request to run a script in a folder that does not have Scripts permission, the Web server returns an error. By default, all directories created during setup have Scripts permission.

Related Topics

• For a more complete description of what a home directory is, see Home Directory in About Publishing Directories.

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