FP98: Using FrontPage Without the Server Extensions

ID: Q194134

The information in this article applies to:

SUMMARY

If the FrontPage Server Extensions are not available on the target Web server, you can still use FrontPage to develop your Web pages. For example, you can develop the Web by using the Microsoft Personal Web Server on your computer and then transferring your Web content to the target Web server. Keep in mind that when you do this, you may lose some features or experience some incompatibilities between your working server and the target server. This article discusses features to avoid if you are publishing your content to a server on which you have not installed the FrontPage Server Extensions and how to handle these incompatibilities.


MORE INFORMATION

If your Web server and operating system are compatible with the FrontPage Server Extensions, ask your service provider to install them. If the FrontPage Server Extensions do not currently support your Web server and operating system, you can submit a suggestion asking Microsoft to provide extensions for your server. Microsoft welcomes suggestions or comments about changes in functionality and product design. You are invited to submit suggestions by filling out the form at the following Microsoft Web site:

http://www.microsoft.com/regwiz/regwiz.asp
NOTE: To determine whether your server and operating system are compatible With the FrontPage Server Extensions, please see the following Microsoft World Wide Web site:
http://www.microsoft.com/frontpage/wpp/exts.htm

Avoiding FrontPage Browse-Time Components

Most FrontPage components affect the Web only at authoring time. For example, an Include Page component or Table of Contents affects the page it is on only when that page or some other page is created or modified. These FrontPage components are inactive at browse-time. However, some FrontPage components, especially those that are used with forms, rely on the FrontPage Server Extensions at browse-time. If you are transferring your files to a Web server on which the FrontPage Server Extensions are not installed, you should avoid using the following FrontPage components:
Confirmation Field
Discussion Form Handler
Guest Book
Registration Form Handler
Save Results Form Handler
Scheduled Image
Scheduled Include Page component
Search Form Hit counters
If you use any of these FrontPage components, customers who browse your Web Site may receive an "HTTP 404" error when they use the corresponding form.

Avoiding Server Incompatibilities

If possible, develop your content on the same type of Web server that you are using as your target Web server. If this is not possible, avoid incompatibilities between your working server and your target server. Some potential trouble areas include the following:

Access Control

Access control will not carry over between Web servers of different types. You will have to re-enter any access control information for the new server.

File Name Extensions

Different Web servers may have different rules for mapping file name extensions to Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) types. For example, a Windows-based server may recognize only .htm as HyperText Markup Language (HTML), while a UNIX-based server may recognize only .html.

NOTE: You can reconfigure your working server to match the target server. The FrontPage wizards and templates generate pages that have the .htm extension. If possible, you should make sure that your target server recognizes the .htm extension for HTML files.

Default Pages

Different Web servers have different conventions for naming the default page. For example, the CERN server recognizes Welcome.html (among others) by default, while NCSA 1.4 recognizes Index.html. Note that you can reconfigure your working server to match the target server. FrontPage will create the home page document with whatever name the working server provides. For more information about configuring the default home page for the FrontPage Personal Web Server, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
Q194085 FP: How to Use a Document Other Than Index.htm as Default Page

Transferring the Content

Once your content has been developed and tested on your working server, you can copy or transfer the files via File Transfer Protocol (FTP) to the target server. The following files and folders should not be transferred:

All folders beginning with _vti_

These folders contain information for use only when the FrontPage Server Extensions are present.

Access Control Files

These files vary depending on the type of Web server. In general, you should remove all files that begin with a period if you are transferring files to a UNIX server, and you should remove all files that begin with the number sign (#) if you are moving files to a Windows-based server.

NOTE: If you are using FrontPage 1.1, you can obtain the Microsoft Web Publishing Wizard to automate the FTP process. It will warn you if your Web contains files that will not work on a server that does not have the FrontPage Server Extensions. And, it will copy only the files that do work to the destination server. You can download the Web Publishing Wizard from the following Microsoft World Wide Web site:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/software/webpost/
For more information about publishing your web to a server that does not have the FrontPage Server Extensions installed, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
Q194092 FP98: How to Publish Your Web to a Server w/o FrontPage Extensions

Additional query words: front page explorer editor personal Web server vermeer extensions bot bots publish mspws fppws 


Keywords          : fpext 
Version           : WINDOWS:
Platform          : WINDOWS 
Issue type        : kbinfo

Last Reviewed: July 1, 1999