Setting Up Your Workstation to Work with ASP

Setting up can be the hardest (and scariest) part of creating a dynamic site. Before you can start creating pages, you need to set up a web server and an application server; set up your database, and database management system; create a database driver; and set up a folder where your web pages can officially be “served” by the web server. The following sections take you through that process for ASP.

Setting Up the Web Server and Application Server

ASP works with the IIS (Internet Information Services) and PWS (Personal Web Server) web servers, on Windows computers. The good news is, if you followed the instructions in the preceding chapter, and either installed or are connected to a computer running IIS or PWS, you’re all set for ASP! Unlike other application server technologies, ASP functionality does not need to be installed separately from the web server—it’s already built in. (Of course the bad news is, if you’re not using one of these servers, you can’t use ASP.)