MS Personal Web Server - not !

Factual Questions
1

<spitting fire>
Honestly, Gestapo Gates does my bloody brain in. Anyhoo, I can’t find a sensible way around this and wonder if anyone can suggest something.

I’m running on a Windows ME upgrade from Win 95 and want to install the Personal Web Server (PWS) or similar. This tells me:

“Microsoft Windows Millennium Edition (Me) does not include or support any versions (1.0, 2.0, 4.0) of Microsoft Personal Web Server (PWS)”.

It seems that (from here): "Although PWS 4.0 is not supported in Windows Me, you may be able to install it in Windows Me for testing purposes. – well thanks, Billy Boy !

Call me old-fashioned but if Win 95 and Win 98 both supported the Personal Web Server isn’t it a bit odd to** upgrade** and lose that lose important capability / functionality ?– and, BTW, what do you mean: “may be able to install it in ME” – that comment isn’t exactly oozing confidence.

So, does anyone have a suggestion / work around for a way to install PWS (for both local and remote use) without upgrading to, say, Win 2000 or downgrading to 95 or 98 ? Are there any alternatives ?

Thanks

</spitting fire>

2

You can try a free webserver program. Simple Server works, but has no options. Xitami is more complicated, but has tons of options including remote admin, ftp, ect. I have used both, you can find them at http://www.download.com.

3

Have you tried installing it from an old W98 disc? I had to do a similar thing when I discovered that W98 SE no longer includes TweakUI. It works fine with no problems even though I had to install it from a W95 disc.

My guess is that this is one of those MS “features” that is either a security risk or just causes more problems than MS cares to deal with. Remember that ME is dumbed down in a large number of ways–like disabling DOS functionality on what is essentially a DOS-based platform! Just because it doesn’t support what you want shouldn’t mean that it won’t work.

4

Thanks for that ** mblackwell **. I was so focused in on bloody MS that I didn’t give thought to alternatives. Now I’ve calmed down it makes a lot of sense. Cheers !

And thanks to you too, ** Sofa **. Can’t see it on my Win 95 disc. BTW, I had a several issues with Tweak UI when I upgraded to ME from 95…not at all nice!

Just a question of which Web Server to plump for. Looked at Xitami and Simple Server, also looking at Jana Server …?

5

Try Apache. It’s the best, and has the largest market share of any http server. Wintel binaries available.

6

I’m kind of fond of tinyweb–not many options, but stable and has a very low memory footprint. You can download it from my web site if you want to give it a shot.

…if I remembered to leave my computer on before leaving for work that is… :rolleyes:

7

Thanks very much for the offer, slortar but I’m going to go for Apache as ** Chas.E** suggests. '‘Wintel binaries’ don’t scare me :eek: Really.

Time now to back up. Thanks again, everyone.

8

In a rare meeting of the minds, I second the suggestion for Apache. It powers the UnaBoard and I have had no crashes due to Apache since April 29 of this year, when I went live. It leaks no memory, and is much faster than the IIS products (I used IIS for a short time, and use it at work.)

The downside is that it takes a bit more skill and intimate knowledge of Apache to get it to do everything you want it to.

9

Never thought of it in this way before but thanks for provoking an analogy with ‘a good woman’. Unintended, I’m sure :wink:

10

You’re afraid of security and stability problems and you’re running WinME? snicker :rolleyes:

11

Err no, I’m not particularly worried about security at this stage – just want to be able to do it properly.

Stability…we’ll see. I’m an eternal optimist. Or maybe a techo-masochist.

But, yep, I wouldn’t run it on ME if there was any kind of security issue.

12

Server Watch is a great place to find evaluations of all of the latest web servers available.

13

Sorry about that–I just had a moment of cognitive dissonance. :slight_smile:

14

Generally speaking, it is a very bad thing to upgrade an operating system and lose functionality, but somehow Microsoft has been doing it for years and getting away with it. All other serious operating system vendors take great pains not to break backwards compatibility. Microsoft, according to their own people, always prefers to break backwards compatibility if they feel it makes an improvement to their operating system.

You’ll find many other things broken in ME. Paint cannot handle file types that the 95 and 98 versions could handle. A lot of DOS functionality has been intentionally removed. Changes to the operating system itself will cause many applications to malfunction or possibly crash the computer, especially security applications and system utilities. The really interesting thing is that Microsoft’s own software is just as likely (if not more so) to break on ME than another vendor’s software. Word 2000, I’m told, locks up frequently under ME.

You’ll also find hardware problems with ME. Drivers that work for 95 and 98 won’t work with ME, as I found out the hard way with the video card that was in my 98 box that I upgraded to ME.

ME, despite what you may have heard from Microsoft, is not a true successor in the win 9x line. Microsoft is forcing everyone to NT, whether they like it or not. ME is a transitional step, removing much of the functionality of 95 and 98 but not quite to NT’s extreme. With XP there will be no more win 9x compatible operating system. All you get is a “home” version of XP.