Setting up Microsoft's Personal Web Server on Your Computer – Part 4

Installation and Setup
Version 4.0
Part 4

This is a picture of what the left side of your Personal Web Server window should look like.

	Main: By clicking on the Main icon while in any other area of the Personal Web Server will return you to the Main PWS window.
Publish: Clicking on the Publish icon will enable you to edit your Personal Web Server pages as well as publish new ones. We have included several help files at the end of this exercise to assist you further in understanding the process. See our notes on Publish below!
Web Site:  Clicking on the Web Site icon will enable you to manage your website, such as editing your Home Page, view your Guest Book and open your Drop Box. See more on the use of the Web Site function below.
Tour: Clicking on the Tour icon will take you through each of the available features and steps of the Personal Web Server as well as its options. See Tour below for some examples.
Advanced: Clicking on the Advanced icon will enable you to create directories, edit existing ones, choose default pages, such as Default.htm, Default.asp, Index.htm as well as change and modify other settings. See Advanced below.

The Publish icon:

Before you can publish anything, you must first run the Home Page Wizard within the Publish Wizard to setup your initial Home Page as part of the Personal Web Server setup!

At this point in the installation of the Personal Web Server, click on the Publish icon. This will bring up the Home Page Wizard page of the Publishing Wizard as follows…

As you can see from the warning, the Home Page Wizard must be run at least once before using the Publishing Wizard.

Click on the Home Page Wizard button, the next screen you see will be this one….

This begins the steps necessary to create your initial home page. Now click the button. The next window you will see will be this one….

This step enables you to choose the type of template you want to use for your Home Page. Since we had no intention of retaining this Home Page, we just left the wizard at the default “Looseleaf” and clicked the button, which brought us to this next window….

At this point you can choose whether or not you want to enable a Guest Book on this particular website. We opted for the default, “Yes” and click the button, which brought us to this next window…

At this point you can choose whether or not you want to enable a Drop Box on this particular website. We opted for the default, “Yes” and click the button, which brought us to this next window…

At this point we have chosen a Theme, a Guest Book and a Drop Box. Now you are presented with the opportunity to personalize your Home Page. Now keep in mind, we didn’t go crazy with this as we have no intention of retaining this initial Home Page. We loaded just enough information to allow the wizard to create the files it needed and to give us an idea how it handles files and where they are stored. We clicked the button, which brought us to an initial ASP page where we could fill in the blanks and let the Wizard create the Home Page. When it was done, this is what it looked like. There’s plenty of room for allot of information, so have fun with it. Keep in mind, you can always change what you see!

This finishes the Home Page Wizard which creates your Default.asp home page. Unlike earlier versions of the Personal Web Server, Version 4.0 supports ASP web pages.

Web Site: 
By clicking on the Web Site icon you can manage the simple aspects of editing your initial or default Home Page, view the contents of your Guest Book as well as open your Drop Box to view its contents. Here’s is an example of what the Web Site window looks like when you click this icon….

Tour:
Clicking on the Tour icon will take you through each of the available features and steps of the Personal Web Server as well as its options. Here are some examples of the opening pages found by clicking Tour…

As you can see, the Personal Web Server can be used to create a server for you to publish a small business network web site or enable you to develop your web site and see what it looks like and how it functions before uploading it to the World Wide Web.

The tour explains in adequate detail just what the a web server is and what you can do with it.

As you can see, the wizards included enable you to create the basics so that you can better understand what it takes for a functioning web site.

Advanced:
Clicking on the Advanced icon will enable you to create directories, edit existing ones, choose default pages, such as Default.htm, Default.asp, Index.htm as well as modify other server-like settings. Here are a few examples…

By clicking the Add button in the upper left of this window, you can add virtual Web Site directories to your personal web server. By clicking Add, you will open a window like this…

By using this feature, you can add directories for web sites you create in html editors, such as FrontPage. You can also edit the properties of existing web sites you have created as you can see from this example.

To read more about Advanced Settings, follow this link: Advanced Settings

There are many more settings to adjust and refinements to be made by using the Advanced features, give them a try!

Essentially this concludes the installation and setup of the Microsoft Personal Web Server, however there are a number of other issues that you should review to see if they apply to you. In addition, we have added a list of documents that you should review, and we have covered some specific issues regarding the Personal Web Server and related programs and functions.