Server-Side Web Programming with Active Server Pages
Creating an ASP Development Server

 

Chapter 2 in the text has an excellent description of what to do...

Webserver
You will need to install the Personal Web Server (PWS), Microsoft's development web server software. You must have a computer using the Windows 9x, Windows NT Workstation, or Window 2000 Professional operating systems. In general, if you are serious about ASP development, you should be using Windows 2000 Professional.

Windows 95: In general, your best bet is to upgrade to at least Windows 98. If you own FrontPage 98, you can install a very old version of PWS at \PWS\enu\pwssetup.exe -- then install the ASP.exe engine to enable ASP support. There is also a version of the NT4 Option Pack for Windows 95, although many Win95 images don't seem to handle it well.

Windows 98: A version of PWS is included on the Windows 98 CD at \add-ons\pws\setup.exe.  Otherwise, download the NT version of the NT4 Option Pack. Despite its name, this software installs the PWS on a Windows 98 workstation. This is a VERY large download...

Windows NT: Download the NT4 Option Pack. This is a VERY large download...

Windows 2000 Professional: IIS 5 comes with Win2000. Just run the CD, select "Install Add-On Components", and select "Internet Information Services".

Scripting Engine
If you have Windows 9x or NT, download the latest version of the Microsoft Scripting Engines at http://msdn.microsoft.com/scripting/default.htm?/scripting/vbscript/download/vbsdown.htm .

Data Access
Microsoft's data access technology is called Microsoft Data Access Components, or MDAC. You will want to try to match the data access components used on your production server. Run the code below on your production server to determine the version.  Downloads are available at http://www.microsoft.com/data/download.htm .

Function GetScriptEngineInfo
Dim s
  s = ""
  s = ScriptEngine & " Version "
  s = s & ScriptEngineMajorVersion & "."
  s = s & ScriptEngineMinorVersion & "."
  s = s & ScriptEngineBuildVersion
  GetScriptEngineInfo = s
Exit Function
End Function

Database
Microsoft Access is a good database engine for development or lighlty used webservers. MS Access 2000 is considerably better than 98 from a scalability point of view. However, if your production data is going to be on  MS SQL Server, some of the SQL generated by MS Access will not work in SQL Server. Microsoft provides a SQL Server "lite" product called Microsoft Database Engine, or MSDE.  If you own Visual Studio 6.0 tool or Office 2000 Premium, you can install MSDE as a desktop version of SQL Server. See http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/msde/ for more information.

Troubleshooting Tips:

If you get error messages, look them up in the Microsoft Knowledge Base.

NT4 Option Pack: Error Message: An Unknown Error Occurred While Making MTS Specific Changes to the System Registry

FrontPage98: ASP Code Displayed in Browser

 


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