Personal Web Servers
(Web for Smarties)

The term Web Server is used many times to mean two different things; sometimes it refers to the actual machine hosting the web site, other times it refers to the program serving the web pages. You obviously need both a machine and a program.

The Microsoft Personal Web Server includes a Hypertext Transport Protocol (HTTP) and a File Transfer Protocol (FTP) server. The Microsoft Personal Web Server (or IIS) is fully integrated into the Windows taskbar and Control Panel, which allows you to start and stop HTTP and FTP services, to administer the server, or to change general options.

For an actual program to serve the pages, you will need to obtain and install one of Microsoft’s Web Servers. The web server you will need and how you install it depends upon the operating system of your machine. For example, for Windows 2000/XP Professional operating systems, PWS is called IIS (Internet Information Services).

Note that you may already have the appropriate Personal Web Server installed on your system. Refer to the appropriate section (based upon your operating system), to verify if you already have the appropriate files installed on your system, where to go to download the necessary files, and the instructions on how to install a Personal Web Server on your system.