Setting Up a Personal Web Server

Microsoft provides two products that make it easy to create a personal Web server on your computer for low-volume Web publishing: Microsoft Personal Web Server and Microsoft Peer Web Services. These products are ideal for publishing departmental home pages, personal home pages, or small-scale Web applications on your company’s intranet.

Although Personal Web Server and Peer Web Services are intended for small-scale Web publishing, they provide most of the same services and features as Microsoft Internet Information Server, a robust Web server intended for high-volume Web publishing. You can use Personal Web Server or Peer Web Services to develop and test your Web applications, and then transfer them to a Web server running Microsoft Internet Information Server.

Both Personal Web Server and Peer Web Services can:

• Publish Web pages on the Internet or over a LAN on an intranet by using the HTTP service.
• Support Microsoft ActiveX controls.
• Transmit or receive files by using the FTP service.
• Run Internet Server API (ISAPI) and Common Gateway Interface (CGI) scripts.
• Send queries to ODBC data sources by using the Internet Database Connector component (Httpodbc.dll).
• Support the Secure Sockets Layer.

In addition, Peer Web Services can:

• Use pass-through security to Windows NT Server and Novell NetWare.
• Use local-user security if Microsoft File and Print Sharing are not installed.
• Perform remote administration by using a Web-based application.
• Distribute documents by using the Gopher service.

Installation Requirements

To run Personal Web Server or Peer Web Services, you must meet the following installation requirements.

Personal Web Server

• A computer with Windows 95 installed.
• A CD-ROM drive for the installation compact disc.
• Adequate disk space for your information content.

Peer Web Services

• A computer with Windows NT Workstation version 4.0 installed.
• A CD-ROM drive for the installation compact disc.
• Adequate disk space for your information content. It is recommended that all drives used with Peer Web Services be formatted with the Windows NT File System (NTFS).

Publication Requirements

When using Personal Web Server or Peer Web Services, each computer you want to access the server must have Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) installed. The TCP/IP protocol is included with Windows 95 and Windows NT Workstation version 4.0. To install and configure the TCP/IP protocol and related components, double-click the Network icon in Control Panel. Each system must meet additional requirements depending on whether you want to use the server on an intranet or the Internet.

Intranet Publication Requirements

• A network adapter card and local area network (LAN) connection.
• The Windows Internet Name Service (WINS) server or the Domain Name System (DNS) server installed on a computer in your intranet. WINS and DNS run only on Windows NT Server. This step is optional, but it does allow users to use “friendly names” instead of IP addresses when connecting to your server.

Internet Publication Requirements

• An Internet connection and Internet Protocol (IP) address from your Internet Service Provider (ISP).
• DNS registration for that IP address. This step is optional, but it does allow users to use “friendly names” instead of IP addresses when connecting to your server. For example, “microsoft.com” is the friendly domain name registered to Microsoft. Within the microsoft.com domain, Microsoft has named its World Wide Web (WWW) server “www.microsoft.com.” Most ISPs can register your domain names for you.
• A network adapter card suitable for your connection to the Internet.

Installing Personal Web Server

The Setup file for the Personal Web Server is available on the Web. To download the Setup program for Personal Web Server for Windows 95, connect to the Microsoft Personal Web Server home page at:

http://www.microsoft.com/ie/iesk/pws.htm

You can install Personal Web Server if you are running Windows 95 or Windows NT Workstation version 4.0. However, if you are using Windows NT, it is recommended that you install Peer Web Services instead.

Û To install Personal Web Server

1. Connect to the Personal Web Server home page on the Web and download PWS10a.exe.
2. Double-click PWS10a.exe.

   This starts the installation process. You may be required to supply additional files from your Windows 95 Setup disks.

3. When installation is finished, the Setup program asks if you want to restart your computer. Click Yes.

Installing Peer Web Services

The files to install Peer Web Services are provided on the Microsoft Windows NT Workstation version 4.0 Setup CD-ROM.

Û To install Peer Web Services

1. Click the Windows Start button, point to Settings, and click Control Panel.
2. Double-click Network.
3. Click the Services tab, and then click Add.
4. In the Network Service list, double-click Peer Web Services.

   This starts the installation process. You may be required to supply additional files from your Windows NT Setup disks.

5. In the first Microsoft Peer Web Services Setup dialog box, click OK.
6. In the second Microsoft Peer Web Services Setup dialog box, select which services you want to install, and then click OK.
7. In the Publishing Directories dialog box, specify the directories you want to use for each service, or accept the default directories, and then click OK.

Getting More Information

For more information about Using Personal Web Server or Peer Web Services, you can refer to their online documentation, which is available once installation is complete.

Û To view documentation for Personal Web Server or Peer Web Services

1. Start your Web browser.
2. To view the documentation for Personal Web Server, in your browser’s address box, type:

   http://MyServer/docs/default.htm

   To view the documentation for Peer Web Services, in your browser’s address box, type:

   http://MyServer/iisadmin/htmldocs/inetdocs.htm

   where MyServer is the name of the computer on which you installed Personal Web Server or Peer Web Services. To determine the name of the computer, open Control Panel, double-click the Network icon, and then click the Identification tab.

3. Press ENTER.

Using Active Server Pages with Personal Web Server or Peer Web Services

If you want to use Active Server Pages with either Personal Web Server or Peer Web Services, you must install the Active Server Pages components after installing your server software. These components are not distributed with the Setup programs for Personal Web Server or Peer Web Services. To download the Setup program for these components, connect to http://www.microsoft.com/msdownload/iis_asp.htm.

Note   To install the Active Server Pages components for Personal Web Server running on Windows 95, download the Active Server Pages for Windows NT (i386) Setup files.

See Also   For more information on the Internet Information Server version 3.0 and the Active Server Pages components, connect to http://www.microsoft.com/iis/default.asp.