Previous Next

• 02-09-2008, 9:14 AM

  In reply to

  hugo Joined on 07-12-2005, 11:27 PM Posts 3 hugo

  Re: Can't install FPSE 2002 Beta Reply Contact Hmm, am I to understand that we must download some code, NOT from Microsoft, but some 3rd party with a flaky website (I mean really amateurish) in order to get Microsoft's most advanced products to work? Those links you gave, ultimately link back to a page on www.rtr.com a site that is stunning in it's lack of design, it is an insult to it's users in my view and far from what I would expect for a serious trustworthy commercial operation. How do we know that installing this will not compromise Windows Server 2008? Why does Microsoft's own website NOT MENTION anywhere, this fact about "Microsoft and Ready-to-Run Software have released the the release candidate 1 version of the Microsoft FrontPage 2002 Server Extensions (FPSE 2002) for IIS 7.0 on Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista." ? If Microsoft endorse, recommend, propose or suggest that the products from www.rtr.com are necessary to solve some particular problem with Microsoft's own systems, then why on earth is there no official Microsoft page or article about this? I have searched Microsoft's website for FPSE, FrontPage Extensions etc etc and nowhere is any mention made of a relationship with this firm. It would be much appreciated if someone from Microsoft's IIS team could EXPLAIN exactly what RTR's products are for, and why they may be needed for Vista or Server 2008 running IIS7, in other words if one DOES NOT install these, what exactly is it that they or their system will NOT be able to do. Sorry to moan, but with all the hype surrounding the release of VS 2008 and the soon to be hype over Server 2008, I am frankly stunned that customers are being pointed by Microsoft, at some dubious looking 3rd party website with poor grammar. H

• 02-09-2008, 11:25 AM

  In reply to

  robmcm Joined on 05-26-2006, 9:05 PM Redmond, WA Posts 75 robmcm

  Re: Can't install FPSE 2002 Beta Reply Contact Hi Hugo, I should explain a bit of history in the hopes that it makes things a bit clearer. Microsoft and Ready-to-Run Software (RTR) have had a partnership for many years regarding the development of the FrontPage Server Extensions. This partnership usually consisted of Microsoft creating the Windows-based versions of the FrontPage Server Extensions and RTR porting that software to several versions of UNIX. So for several years Microsoft customers have been downloading the UNIX versions of FPSE from RTR, and in addition RTR has provided technical support for the UNIX versions of FPSE. The FrontPage Server Extensions are part of the Office suite of products, and in the summer of 2006 Office XP reached its end of life. Most customers were aware at that time that the FrontPage 2002 Server Extensions were included in that timeline. (See the Microsoft Support Lifecycle web site for more information on the Office XP end-of-life.) Around this same period the IIS product team was working on IIS 7, and we realized that several customers were going to want to continue using the FrontPage Server Extensions, and based on Microsoft's previous work with RTR they seemed like the ideal choice. Our team worked closely with RTR to port the existing FrontPage 2002 Server Extensions code to Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista, and the senior developer on the project was one of the original designers of FPSE when he worked for Vermeer Technologies, who were the original creators of FrontPage. (Later he worked for Microsoft creating the subsequent versions of FPSE before he accepted a position with RTR.) In the end, RTR did a great job creating this version of FPSE, and they added several setup options that were not available in previous versions of FPSE, like the ability to install required or additional IIS features during installation and a combined 32-bit/64-bit setup package. Our team has documented the fact that this version of the FrontPage Server Extensions is available only from RTR in the "Installing the FrontPage Server Extensions" walkthrough and the "FrontPage Server Extensions download page, but the decision to install FPSE is based on the individual needs of a customer. If you choose not to install FPSE, IIS 7 is still fully-functional and you can still use Visual Studio to create local web site projects. If you need to publish your content remotely and you choose not to install FPSE on your IIS server, you would need to use FTP or the new WebDAV module and the WebDAV Redirector that's built-in to Windows to publish your content to the server. (Note: the WebDAV Redirector allows you to map a drive to your web site and access your remote content through a drive letter. See the "Installing and Configuring WebDAV on IIS 7.0" walkthrough for more information.) I hope this clears things up a bit! Robert McMurray

  Tags: FPSEIIS7