FrontPage

Please note: This page is only for customers with older accounts on "Version 2" hosting servers. Microsoft discontinued support for FrontPage in late 2007 and as a result we no longer support FrontPage extensions on our newer servers. We are unable to fulfill requests for account migrations to these older servers. If you are unsure about the version of the server that your account resides, please contact support@he.net for further assistance.

This information only pertains to Hurricane Electric's Shared Web Hosting package. There may be different information in our other categories.

How do I get FrontPage enabled for my account?

Send email to support@he.net requesting FrontPage be enabled for your account. Be sure to mention your account name.

How will having FrontPage enabled affect my currently installed CGI scripts?

It will break them. While it is possible some or all of your current CGI scripts can be made to work with FrontPage, the directory on the server in which your scripts are kept will be different.

Can I mix uploading my site using FTP with publishing my site using FrontPage?

Unless you are an expert developer, we recomend you don't mix the two. You may lose data.

I created a form in FrontPage that didn't work after I uploaded it. Why?

Files created in FrontPage that require bots to run properly, must be edited online. To fix the form you uploaded:

1. Open Frontpage98 Explorer.
2. On the box that is displayed on startup click on More Webs.
3. In the next box that is displayed, type in your domain name.
4. Click on list Webs.
5. Another box should come up saying <Root Web>.
6. Double-click on <Root Web>.
7. Enter your Account Name on our server where it asks for Username and your account's password at the prompt.
8. After you're logged in select the broken pages (pages with forms, counters etc.).
9. Right click (Control-click on a Macintosh) on the form and look at the properties. Click OK when you're done.
10. In the "File" menu choose "Save" (not Save As) and it will "Publish" the page to the FrontPage Web.
11. Repeat steps 8-10 as required to repain any 'Bots' that you have installed (forms, counters etc.).

Can I create or edit the .htaccess files in an account enabled for FrontPage?

FrontPage may overwrite any .htaccess file it finds when options are changed for the documents in that directory. Also FrontPage can become confused if you create an .htaccess file in a subdirectory.

How do I use a secure form with FrontPage?

You can not edit the html in the secure_html dir and publish it with FrontPage. It must be edited created on your computer and sftp'ed up to the secure_html directory.

To call the secure page, use:

https://server.he.net/~accountname/securepage.html

Scripts that you can use are located at www.cgi-resources.com

http://www.scriptsearch.com

You will need to obtain a basic form script and install it.

I noticed that FrontPage creates a bunch of directories starting with _vti in my document directory. Can I delete these to clean up my document directory?

No, this will break FrontPage for your account.

Why doesn't Hurricane Electric have FrontPage support on the newest servers?

In September 2007, Microsoft announced that FrontPage 2003 would be the last version of FrontPage to be released. They have released two new replacement products: SharePoint Designer (for business and developers) and Expression Web Designer (for home web designers). FrontPage has reached its "End of Life" (EOL) with Microsoft. Microsoft also announced that the Unix/Linux FrontPage server extensions, which Hurricane Electric uses, have also reached their EOL date.

Some features used in FrontPage web sites are based on FrontPage Server Extensions released by Microsoft. Things like form processing, themes, hit counters and even web site publishing. These features are collectively known as the FrontPage web-bots.

Due to the decision to EOL Frontpage, by Microsoft, we no longer support the extensions on our newest (version 3) servers. As the modules cannot legally be distributed or downloaded any longer, new servers will no longer provide Frontpage server-side functionality.

Options

If you are currently utilizing Microsoft FrontPage to develop and publish your web site, you have several options; each with their own advantages and disadvantages. Two options are:

• You can continue to utilize FrontPage to develop and publish your web site. We need to leave you on our older servers to do it. These servers are on a development freeze, meaning that nothing new, apart from security patches, will be installed on them. Please note that since Microsoft has proclaimed "End of Life" on the extensions, there will never be updates and patches for them; this means, should anyone find any vulnerabilities in the FP extensions, our only recourse will be to remove them.

• Microsoft, Adobe and many other commercial companies offer newer versions of web site creation software for you to purchase. These products include the latest features and functionality to make updating your site easy. Macromedia Dreamweaver appears to be one of the most popular, although most of these web design packages utilize the SFTP protocol in order to upload content, and should not be affected in the future in a similar way (by a technology being EOL'd).