Personal Webserver

Personal Webserver makes your PC act as an intranet server
within a small workgroup. It’s not for the Internet or for large networks, and helps
you handle HTML documents, and transfer files within a limited number of users (ideally 10
to 15). It’s a scaled down Internet Information Server (IIS) that comes as a part of
the OSR2 version of Win 95, and 98, and can also be used to test Web pages before you
upload them to a live site. It acts as a proxy server that gives you the feel of the real
Internet environment. If you are using a previous version of Win 95, you can download the
Personal Webserver files from www.microsoft.com/ie/download/ieadd.htm.

The installation is fairly easy. For Win 95 OSR2 users,
right click Network Neighborhood and go to Properties>
Configuration>Add>Service>Add> Microsoft>Personal Webserver and click on
OK. Win 95 will ask you to restart the machine. The other method of installation is even
easier. Download the PWS10A.EXE file from the Internet site mentioned earlier. Double
click the file icon. The program will copy some files and will ask you to restart your
machine. On restarting, the Personal Webserver icon will appear on the system tray in the
taskbar. Win 98 users can install the Server from Programs>Internet
Explorer>Personal Web Server.

Its default configuration is more than sufficient to get
you started. To test your setup, open any browser. Type http:// machine>, (the name of your machine can be found from Network
Neighborhood>Properties> Identification). A default screen called "Your Home
Page Goes Here" will appear.

Personal Webserver has an FTP server that is off by
default. To turn it on, right click its icon in the system tray and select
Properties>Services>Start. Now, type ftp:// in the
browser. A default page (giving the current directory) will be displayed, indicating the
successful installation of FTP services.

Now that your system is ready, you can use the Personal
Webserver for hosting your pages so that they are available to all those who are on the
intranet. Save these pages in your system and remember the path. Now right click the Web-
server icon and select Administer. This will open a page called Internet Services
Administrator that has three main options: WWW administration, FTP administration and
Local user administration.

For handling HTML documents, click on WWW administration.
Click on the Directories tab in the new page that pops up. The first path under the
Directory head refers to the first page that will be displayed when anyone accesses your
site. You can edit this and set the path to the page you have created.

To start using FTP services, you again need to go to the
Internet Services Administrator page and select the WWW Administration option. Configure
it in the same way as the WWW Administration and your files are ready for FTP.

Like other features, setting access rights on Personal
Webserver is also an easy task. In the Internet Services Administrator page select the
option Local User Administration. The page that opens will guide you to install security
for the first time. Once this is done, all you need to do is add new users and give them
passwords, by selecting the Users tab from the same page.

The Win 98 version of Personal Webserver has extra features
like a wizard to create your Web page, a wizard to publish Web pages, and an introductory
tour of Personal Webserver.