Windows 2000 IIS installation

[slappy]

I've been working with a friend for days attempting to get some version of vBulletin installed and running on a Windows 2000 server, using IIS and PHP in CGI mode. I believe a good part of the problem is the instructions for php and vBulletin are not nearly as clear for an installation on a non-Apache system.

Here's one issue that is not clearly addressed, at least as far as I have found. If a version of PHP is installed which states that it has "built in support" for mySQL, does that mean that NO other installation of mySQL should be made? Or, does this mean only that various of the php extension files, which might otherwise be needed to "support" mySQL are not then needed.

I had no problem installing and running a test Board on my local machine using version 2.2.9, but that was in Apache2 and I've been told that that is not really a "production" version yet.

I'm no server expert, although my friend is, and we haven't had much luck yet. I can answer any questions that would assist in the giving of some assistance. I can get to the install folder, but the install.html file just opens, it doesn't "install." The PHP test function from the start menu indicates that PHP is running correctly.

[Floris]

Make sure you have the .php extension edition downloaded, so the install.html will be a .php file - which will probably run a lot better

[Tungsten]

Here's one issue that is not clearly addressed, at least as far as I have found. If a version of PHP is installed which states that it has "built in support" for mySQL, does that mean that NO other installation of mySQL should be made? Or, does this mean only that various of the php extension files, which might otherwise be needed to "support" mySQL are not then needed.

You will still need to have MySQL installed on the server. I highly recommend you use the older v3.23.56 of MySQL rather than the new 4.x track as there are some outstanding reliability issues with vBulletin and 4.x

The built-in support part just means that the PHP distribution for Windows comes pre-compiled with the PHP routines in it already.

I would also recommend that you download the non-installer version of PHP for Win32 from www.php.net and use the php4isapi.dll to run it in a non-cgi environment. There is a worthwhile performance increase to be had from not using the php.exe file for the PHP engine.

I'm no server expert, although my friend is, and we haven't had much luck yet. I can answer any questions that would assist in the giving of some assistance. I can get to the install folder, but the install.html file just opens, it doesn't "install." The PHP test function from the start menu indicates that PHP is running correctly.

It sounds like PHP is not mapped properly as an application under IIS. There is a good, straight to the point file included in the PHP distribution that tells you how to do this. It is called "install.txt". Look for it in the PHP installation directory if you have already installed PHP.

Finally, the Windows server's IUSR_computername account will need to be granted Read and Execute rights to your forum's root folder and then will also need to be granted the Modify rights to the following sub-folders:

• attachments
• customavatars
• images/avatars
• images/icons
• images/smilies
• tmp

This allows the PHP sessions to upload and modify things like smilies, avatars stored in the file system, message icons, etc.

IUSR_computername also needs to be granted the Read and Execute permission to your PHP installation directory. C:\PHP by default, or wherever else you chose to install it.

[feldon23]

Or just go Apache and have a reliable, security vulnerability-free, resource-light web server with vBulletin, MySQL, and PHP all up and running in about an hour.