Server-based or Disk-based?

Many FrontPage developers ask which is better, a disk-based Web site or a server-based Web site? No answer to that question works for all scenarios. It simply depends on what you are doing with your Web site and what you need to test as you are developing your site.

Some of the benefits to a server-based Web site are

• FrontPage Web components that require the FrontPage Server Extensions at browse-time will run.

• If running on a Windows SharePoint Services enabled Web server, many more features are available to you that cannot be used on a disk-based Web site.

• You can test your ASP and ASP.NET pages during development as long as the Web server supports ASP and ASP.NET.

• If connected to the Internet, others may be able to browse to your Web site. However, bear in mind that this also means that they can see your Web site as you are developing it.

• You can create Web sites on computers that are not accessible from a disk path such as computers on other networks.

In comparison, the only benefit to a disk-based Web site is that no Web server software is required, so setup and administration of the Web site is much easier.

As mentioned previously, if you are using Windows XP Home Edition, you cannot install a Web server on your machine. Therefore, if you are going to create a server-based Web site from a Windows XP Home Edition machine, you must create it on a remote Web server.