E.0.0- John Kauffman's tips for Installing Personal Web Server on Win 9x

John Kauffman's tips for Installing Personal Web Server on Win 9x

Although we have retained this appendix from the printed book in the wiki, we don't really recommend running Windows 9x or NT 4 here in 2007 and later. With the emphasis on security in more recent Windows versions and especially in the web servers with them, along with the fact that these older Windows versions are no longer supported by Microsoft and don't receive the security updates that newer versions do, running these older versions may be an unnecessary security risk.

The main strength of PWS is that it provides a convenient and inexpensive development environment for pre-Windows 2000 machines, without the need for powerful hardware. A copy of your web site can be made to a local machine and then worked upon without the possibility of damaging the real site during development. Saving and viewing sites on a local drive enables the developer to review progress without having to repeatedly transfer files. At the end of development all the code must be transferred by FTP or HTTP, but that one-time transfer is less expensive in terms of time and resources than repeated transfers.

One of the main drawbacks of PWS is that it can be awkward to install and get up and running correctly. I have tried to summarize in this section all of the main problems that I have encountered, and that my students have encountered, to ease what can prove to be a tricky process sometimes. Indeed even the first question can prove an obstacle: where should I get it from?

For later versions of Windows, please be aware that PWS no longer ships with Windows.