Yup .. couldn't agree more ....
I don't want to host a site ..... ever .. but what I do want is to be able to develop my site ideas on a local server. Mainly for speed reasons.
IIS is simple enough .. but I got caught in a few traps myself .... (one of which was using firefox) and SQL ... well ... umm.. I am looking at a book now ... errr .... page 5 ....
The thing about the install manual .. is its fine ..until something changes ... you go step by step .. then oops .. it's not like that on this machine, wham.... dead end.
I will give you an example.
On page 12 it talks about setting file permissions.
Ok .. go to the security tab .... err .. what security tab ... 2 hours later .. after looking around you find out somewhere else that you need to turn off "use simple file permissions" somewhere in the bowels of the computer under vew folders.
The thing is .. I did know about this, but not everyone does .. and it did hold me up .. not for 2 hours .. but I can see someone getting stuck on just that point alone.
The bit that I got stuck on .. and god knows how I actually got around it was the part where it says ....
In Windows 2000/IIS5 the account to use is the {Server}\ASPNET User Account,
in Windows 2003/IIS6 the account is the NT AUTHORITY\NETWORK SERVICE
User Account.
What ? .. first thing .. I am using WinXP .. is that Windows 2000/IIS5 or Windows 2003/IIS6 ? buggered if I know.
I think I am using the first one .. but I don't really know ... ok spend another 1/2 hour looking around .. get a version number of 5.1 off the IIS about box ... OK . .must be the first one right ?
Yer maybe .. then why doesn't my box look like the one in the manual ?
Where is the account called NETWORK SERVICE ? .. don't know .... never did find it ....
Post a question ... get no reply .. skip that part .....
I finally got it working and I didn't even need that bit is the worrying bit ... just how did it work anyway ? .... I didn't enter any connetion strings anywhere ... I didn't do ANY coding .. and it still worked ..
Lucky I guess ... great .. hope I get lucky if I have to do it again ......
There really needs to be a fantastico type install for us dummys .. one that works on a local machine. Even a better install guide would be a help. Thanks to Mr Nurse for getting it this far .. but it really needs more work and sorry .. but I can't help because I just have not got the skills. I didn't even know what IIS or SQL really was before starting this ... so when someone says .. "make sure your connect string is right" ... well ... errr .. you get the point.