Personal Web Server

Personal Web Server, or PWS, is a server designed for use with Microsoft Windows 95. This is the ideal server for developing sites off line. In fact, Personal Web Server supports many of the features seen in the full version of IIS, including virtual directories and Active Server Pages. PWS ships with Visual InterDev and is typically used with Visual InterDev to create sites.

When installed, PWS can be identified as a small earth-and-computer icon located in the taskbar. Server administration is straightforward and simple—much like administration of its larger counterpart. To begin, simply double-click the earth-and-computer icon to view the Personal Web Server Properties dialog box, shown in Figure 2-13.

Figure 2-13. The Personal Web Server Properties dialog box.

On the General tab, you can set the default home page for the server. The Startup tab allows you to start and stop the server and determine whether the server starts automatically when the computer is booted. The Administration tab is used to access administrative capabilities, including password authentication, virtual directories, and site logging. Note that unlike IIS administration, which is dialog-based, PWS administration is Web-based. (See Figure 2-14 on the following page.)

The Services tab of the Personal Web Server Properties dialog box reveals the two services that PWS supports: HTTP and FTP. (PWS does not provide the Gopher service available in IIS.) On the Services tab, you can control which of the services is currently running. To publish Web pages, you will need to run the HTTP service.

Figure 2-14. PWS Web-based administration.