Setting Up a Simple Web Site | Special Edition Using Microsoft Windows XP Professional (3rd Edition)

Right out of the box, IIS is ready to serve up static Web pages and images. If you have files from an existing Web site, or if you can create and edit HTML files yourself, you can simply copy them into the home directory c:\inetpub\wwwroot and any subfolders you want to create. The default page name is initially default.htm, so give this name to your home page file.

With no further administration or fuss, other users on your network and/or on the Internet can view your Web site, using your computer's Internet domain name or, on a Windows LAN, by viewing http://machinename, where machinename is the Windows name of your computer. (You can find that name by right-clicking My Computer, selecting Properties, and viewing the Network Identification tab.)

You can also use Notepad, FrontPage, FrontPage Express, Microsoft Word, or other editors like Dreamweaver to create Web pages. If you're the impatient type, as I am, you can just follow these steps to build a really quick and dirty home page, just to prove to yourself that you really do have a Web server up and running:

1.	Select Start, Programs, Accessories, Notepad.
2.	Type the following text: <HTML> <HEAD> <TITLE>This is My Home Page</title> </HEAD> <BODY> <P>Welcome to my completely spiffy new website, hosted by Windows XP! </BODY> </HTML> Be especially careful to get the angle brackets (< and >) right and to use the forward slash (/), not the backslash (\).
3.	Select File, Save As, and enter `c:\inetpub\wwwroot\default.htm` as the filename. Click OK.
4.	View `http:\\localhost` in Internet Explorer.

Now you have your very own home page. It's not much to look at, but now you can say you've coded Web pages by hand. This will impress people. When you're finished, you can create or copy other HTML documents and images into the wwwroot folder.

IIS can deliver more than static Web pages. I'll talk about dynamic Web pages and scripting in the "Tips from the Windows Pros" section at the end of this chapter.

If you are a Web development professional or want to become one, we recommend the following books as great starting places for learning more:

Special Edition Using Microsoft FrontPage 2003, published by Que
Special Edition Using HTML 4.0, also published by Que

TIP

Don't put anything into your Web folders that you don't want to be seen all over the world. Just because your pages don't link to a given file doesn't mean that someone else won't publish a Web page linking to it.