Installing the FrontPage Server Extensions on IIS 7.0

  • Author: Robert McMurray
  • Published on November 22, 2007 by saad
  • Updated on March 14, 2008 by saad
  • Tags: FPSE

Introduction

As most people that have installed IIS 7.0 on Windows Vista and Windows Server© 2008 have realized, there are no options to install the FrontPage Server Extensions, leaving the only two ways to edit your Web site hosted on a Windows Vista or Windows Server 2008 computer:

  • Edit the Web site locally using the file system.
  • Use FTP to upload your files to a remote Windows Vista or Windows Server 2008 computer.

Microsoft realizes that the FrontPage Server Extensions are essential to many Web hosting companies and developers, and has worked with Ready-to-Run Software to release a version of the FrontPage 2002 Server Extensions (FPSE 2002) for Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008. This version of FPSE 2002 is available for x86 (32-bit) and x64 (64-bit) Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 as a separate download for IIS 7.0, and you can download this version by clicking the following URL:

In This Walkthrough

Notes:

  • This release of the FrontPage 2002 Server Extensions (FPSE 2002) is supported Ready-to-Run Software. More information about Ready-to-Run Software is available at the following URL:

  • This version of FPSE 2002 introduces no new functionality; it is essentially the same version of FPSE 2002 that was created for Windows Server 2003, but it has been updated to work on Windows Vista or Windows Server 2008. By way of additional explanation, FPSE 2002 is part of the Office XP system of products. The Office XP system, including FPSE 2002, left mainstream support on July 11th, 2006, according to the Office lifecycle policy. Because Microsoft's support policy is to remove software from the Download Center that is no longer supported, FPSE 2002 was removed from the Microsoft Download Center at that time as a separate product. FPSE 2002 continues to be available and supported on Windows Server 2003 through the Add Windows Components section of the Add/Remove Programs control panel.

FPSE Prerequisites

Supported Platforms

This version of the FrontPage Server Extensions is only supported on the following platforms:

  • Windows Server 2008:
    • All SKUs
  • Windows Vista:
    • Business
    • Enterprise
    • Ultimate
    • Home Premium

Required Role Services and Features

The following role services and features are required to install the FrontPage 2002 Server Extensions (FPSE 2002) on Windows Vista or Windows Server 2008. If they are not already installed on your computer when you install FPSE 2002, they will be installed for you automatically. If you do not want these role services and features installed on your computer, you cannot install FPSE 2002.

  • Web Server (IIS) Role Services:
    • Web Server
      • Common HTTP Features
        • Static Content
        • Default Document
        • Directory Browsing (See note 1)
        • HTTP Errors (See note 1)
      • Application Development
        • ISAPI Extensions
        • ISAPI Filters
      • Health and Diagnostics
        • HTTP Logging (See note 1)
        • Request Monitor (See note 1)
      • Security
        • Windows Authentication or Basic Authentication (See note 2)
        • Request Filtering
      • Performance
        • Static Content Compression (See note 1)
    • Management Tools
      • IIS Management Console (See note 1)
      • IIS 6 Management Compatibility
        • IIS 6 Metabase Compatibility
  • Features:
    • Windows Process Activation Service
      • Process Model

Notes:

  1. These role services are required to install the FrontPage Server Extensions, but they are optional once installation has completed. After installation is complete, you can use Server Manager to remove one or more of the optional role services if you do not require the functionality that they provide. However, most of these optional role services are useful for configuring and monitoring your Web server.
  2. The following authentication method is required by the FrontPage Server Extensions depending on your version of Windows:
    • Windows Authentication is required for all versions of Windows Server 2008 and all versions of Windows Vista except Windows Vista Home Premium.
    • Basic Authentication is required for Windows Vista Home Premium.

FPSE Installation on Windows Vista or Windows Server 2008

Downloading FPSE

To install the FrontPage 2002 Server Extensions (FPSE 2002) on Windows Vista or Windows Server 2008, begin by downloading the installation package from the following URL:

After you have downloaded the FPSE 2002 installation package, you need to make sure that you install the FrontPage Server Extensions using full administrative permissions. This is best accomplished using one of two methods:

  • Log in to your computer using the local "administrator" account, then double-click the installation package to being the installation process.
  • If you are logged in using an account with administrative permissions that is not the local "administrator" account, open a command prompt using the "Run as Administrator" option, then use the following command to start the installation process:

    msiexec /i <path to FPSE package>\<name of FPSE package>.msi

Note: The above steps are required because the User Account Control (UAC) security component in the Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 operating systems will prevent the FPSE 2002 installation package from installing correctly. For more information about UAC, please see the following documentation:

Installing FPSE 

The installation process will first present you with an End-User License Agreement, which you may choose to accept or cancel, but acceptance is required to continue installation. If you accept the terms of the license agreement and click Next, if any of the prerequisites are not installed then the installation package will present you with a list of the role services and features that are required to install FPSE 2002. If you do not want these role services and features installed on your computer, click Cancel to cancel the installation. If you click Next, the installation package will present you with a list of optional role services that are used by some additional FrontPage features. These role services are not required by FPSE 2002, and their descriptions will list which FrontPage features use each role service. After choosing any additional role services, you can click Next and then Install to being the actual installation process.

Note: Unlike previous versions of the FrontPage Server Extensions, the installation process will only create the "MSSharePointAppPool" application pool and the FrontPage Server Administration Web site (also called the Microsoft SharePoint Administration Web site). Therefore no Web sites will have the FrontPage Server Extensions installed after you have completed the installation process.

Extending Web Sites with FPSE

After you set up FrontPage 2002 Server Extensions (FPSE 2002) on your server, you must extend a Web site or virtual server with FPSE 2002 before you can open the Web site using an authoring tool.

You can extend the server one of two ways:

  • By using HTML Administration pages.
  • By using the install operation with the command-line tools.

Note: Extending a Web site does not configure any authentication methods. After installing FPSE 2002 on a Web site, you will need to configure an authentication method, such as Windows or Basic Authentication, before your users will be able to open or publish to the Web site.

Using HTML Administration Pages to Extend a Web Site

To extend a Web site using HTML Administration pages on Windows, use the following steps:

  1. Click Start, point to Programs, point to Administrative Tools, and then click Microsoft SharePoint Administrator to open the Server Administration page.
  2. In the list of virtual servers, click Extend next to the virtual server you want to extend.
  3. In the Administrator box, type the user name for the administrator of the virtual server.
  4. Click Submit.

Note: Using the HTML Administration pages gives you the most flexibility in choosing which options you want enabled after you extend your server.

Using the Command Line to Extend a Web Site

You can extend a Web site by using the command-line tools, owsadm or owsrmadm. These tools are located in the "%ProgramFiles%\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\50\bin" folder. To extend a Web site, use the install operation, which takes the following parameters.

Parameter Short Form Description

Port

-p

The port number. If missing, this parameter defaults to port 80. This value can be a site instance number, such as LM/W3SVC/1. To determine the site instance number to use, see the note below.

Username

-u

If your server is part of a domain, the domain name and your user name. For example, MyDomain\MyUserName.

Note: To determine which site instance number to use, open the IIS manager and select the "Sites" node in the tree. The ID column in the site list contains the unique identifier for each site, which you would use in the site instance number. For example, if a site has an ID of 3, the site instance number would be LM/W3SVC/3.

The following example shows the syntax for the install operation on Windows:

owsadm.exe –o install –p <port> -u <username>

Note: For a complete list of the parameters required for the install operation and their descriptions, see Command-line Operations.

Removing FPSE from Web Sites

You can temporarily or permanently remove FrontPage 2002 Server Extensions on a particular server. To temporarily remove the extensions so you can clean or restore your site, use the Uninstall command. In this mode, much of the data about your site is preserved, so you can extend the virtual server again and return to your original configuration.

To permanently remove FrontPage 2002 Server Extensions, use the Full Uninstall option. Doing so also removes any other files and folders that FrontPage 2002 Server Extensions installed. All of the data about your site (excluding actual site content) is deleted when you perform a full uninstall, so be sure that is what you want before you use the Full Uninstall option.

Using HTML Administration Pages to Remove

You can use HTML Administration pages to uninstall FrontPage 2002 Server Extensions. To remove FrontPage 2002 Server Extensions from a web site:

  1. Open the Server Administration page.
  2. In the list of virtual servers, next to the virtual server you want to uninstall, click Administration.
  3. Under Administration, click Uninstall FrontPage 2002 Server Extensions.
  4. If you want to uninstall FrontPage 2002 Server Extensions completely, including the metadata about your Web site, next to Full Uninstall, click Yes.
  5. Click Uninstall.

Using the Command Line to Remove

You can remove the FrontPage 2002 Server Extensions from a Web site using the command-line tools, owsadm or owsrmadm. These tools are located in the "%CommonProgramFiles%\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\50\bin" folder. To remove FPSE 2002 from a Web site, you use the uninstall or fulluninstall operations. The uninstall operation removes FrontPage 2002 Server Extensions from your server. The full uninstall operation also removes the data about your site (excluding actual site content) from your virtual server.

The uninstall and fulluninstall operations take the port parameter. The following example shows the syntax for removing FPSE from a web site:

owsadm.exe –o uninstall –p <port>

Related Content

Comments

nealmiller1

To completely remove FrontPage Server Extensions from Windows Server 2003, from the Configure Your Server wizard, uninstall the Application Server role, including IIS, ASP.NET, and FPSE. Then when complete, re-install the Application Server role for the server, but when it asks you to install ASP.NET and install Front Page Server Extensions, you will most likely want to check the ASP.NET box, and leave the Front Page Server Extensions box unchecked. After doing so, be sure to run Windows Update to make sure that any server patches are installed properly. After following these steps, I was able to install Windows SharePoint Services, and during that process it did NOT detect the existence of Front Page Server Extensions, which was what I wanted to accomplish.

Sep 05 2008 by nealmiller1
gregale.net

It solved our problem in 5 mins rather than 2 hours trying to complete the installation. Nice work.

Nov 11 2008 by gregale.net
steam86

Expressio0n web does not work with IIS7

RTR.com is a joke

Instructions do not work

Dec 04 2008 by steam86
serge-

And what you say about a 'Data at the root level is invalid. Line 1. Position 1' error?? ha? How i can fix it?

Apr 01 2009 by serge-
joe_l

I have the following setup:


1) Two IIS 7 servers using shared configuration and setup as member servers in a 2003 AD environment
2) Config and content shared is currently shared on the AD server (yes this is just a lab environment)
3) FrontPage server extensions are installed on both IIS 7 servers
a) registry entries added for NoMachineGroups and AllowUNC on both IIS 7 servers
b) after the registry entries were added I was able to add FPSE to a virtual site using the sharepoint website or by CLI and did not receive the annoying "
Warning: Your FrontPage web content is stored on a UNC share" error.

4) I added the doamin users that will admin a FPSE website to the local IIS_IUSRS group on the IIS7 web servers.


The problem:
After adding frontpage server extenstions to the virtual site that is using a UNC share the following happens:

ERROR PATH:
http://domain-test.com/_vti_bin/_vti_adm/fpadmdll.dll?page=webadmin.htm

404 - File or directory not found.
The resource you are looking for might have been removed, had its name changed, or is temporarily unavailable.
I do not want to add IIS w/ FPSE to the server that will be the "content" file server, is there a way around this? I tried adding the local IIS_USERS group that has the domain users added to the "C:\Program Files\Common Files\microsoft shared\Web Server Extensions\" as Read and Execute, List Contents and Read but that did not help any either

Anyone have any in-site to this. We would like to have server and content redundancy for frontpage users and not be stuck with configuring FrontPage to local servers only.

Would the new webdav module cure this problem? This is the next item that I am going to test.

Apr 20 2009 by joe_l
Grios

Hello
I don't have any machine running IIS 7 but I see a similar trouble with some Windows 2003 and Windows XP machines. In website properties, Web Site tab, activate Enable HTTP Keep-Alives. Also is a good idea in directory security activating Integrated Windows authentication, apart of the required Anonymus user.

Apr 23 2009 by Grios
NetworkUser

The instructions don't work. I have the same problem as Joe_l.

May 25 2009 by NetworkUser
alexander.schwarz

Same Problems with Joe_I and NetworkUser:

Server 2008 Web Edition x86, Language german, ftp 7.5 installed, no domain, runs in Virtual Server 2005 on Server 2003 x64 engl., default web is not pointed to the standard root because of developing software.

i got an error during installation: "unable to read configuration for Microsoft Internet Information service"? result of owsadm.exe -o check: no extensions installed!

also i searched the whole internet and microsoftsites for any solution.

Can somebody help us?


May 27 2009 by alexander.schwarz
robmcm

Requests for assistance should be posted in the IIS.NET forums, and specifically any questions about FPSE on IIS 7.0 should be posted to the IIS 7.0 Publishing forum at the following URL:

http://forums.iis.net/1045.aspx

That being said…

ISSUE #1

For the “Data at the root level is invalid. Line 1. Position 1.” error, I would suggest removing any web.config files that are located in any _vti_cnf folders. Here’s why – in each folder of your web site FPSE keeps metadata about the files in your web site in _vti_cnf subfolders, and names the metadata files after the source files. Unfortunately, in the case of web.config files this means that IIS or ASP.NET may try to parse those files for valid web.config content and that will ultimately fail.

ISSUE #2

If you see an HTTP 404 error when browsing to any FPSE administration pages, this means one of a few items is at work:

- The _vti_bin was not created for the site; you can check for this in the IIS Manager. If that is the case, you will need to reinstall FPSE for the site.

- DLL files are being blocked by request filtering; you can check for this by looking at the substatus code in your IIS logs. For example, an HTTP 404.7 status means that the file extension was denied. See http://support.microsoft.com/kb/943891 for more.

- The isapiCgiRestriction settings for FPSE may be missing; this is a little more difficult ot check, but in your applicationHost.config file you should have a section that resmebles the following:

isapiCgiRestriction notListedIsapisAllowed="false" notListedCgisAllowed="false">
clear />
add path="C:\Windows\system32\inetsrv\asp.dll" allowed="true" groupId="ASP" description="Active Server Pages" />
add path="C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\aspnet_isapi.dll" allowed="true" groupId="ASP.NET v2.0.50727" description="ASP.NET v2.0.50727" />
add path="C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\50\isapi\_vti_aut\author.dll" allowed="true" groupId="FPSE2002" description="FrontPage Server Extensions 2002" />
add path="C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\50\isapi\_vti_adm\admin.dll" allowed="true" groupId="FPSE2002" description="FrontPage Server Extensions 2002" />
add path="C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\50\isapi\_vti_adm\fpadmdll.dll" allowed="true" groupId="FPSE2002" description="FrontPage Server Extensions 2002" />
add path="C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\50\isapi\shtml.dll" allowed="true" groupId="FPSE2002" description="FrontPage Server Extensions 2002" />
add path="C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\50\isapi\fpcount.exe" allowed="true" groupId="FPSE2002" description="FrontPage Server Extensions 2002" />
/isapiCgiRestriction>

Please note that this list may have more entries than what you see above. The basic concept is - if you are missing the FPSE entries, then FPSE will not work and you will get an HTTP 404 error.

Jun 05 2009 by robmcm
robmcm

ISSUE #3

Now for the larger question of getting the AllowUNC feature to work. The good news is that the AllowUNC feature does work with FPSE on IIS 7.0, but it has never been wasy to set up, even on Windows Server 2003 when it was first introduced. In addition, the instructions for getting that feature to work were not covered in the instructions on this page; the instructions for getting the AllowUNC feature to work are covered in the following whitepaper:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc768023.aspx

Note: This is a very detailed whitepaper that requires a thorough reading before attempting to set this up, and skipping any of the sections in the following list will more than likely result in a failure to get it working:

"Configuring the File Server"
"To share the folder"
"Creating and Configuring a Virtual Server in IIS"
"Configuring Security Settings for the Virtual Server"
"To configure the registry for the Web server"
"To enable FrontPage Server Extensions 2002"

In addition, the whitepaper does not appear to work unless you specify a domain-level IUSR account in IIS, even if you are going to not allow anonymous access. In my testing, it seems to fail when anonymous is disabled and the anonymous user had been local, whereas it succeeded when the anonymous user is a domain-account with rights to the share, even though anonymous is disabled for the site. Also, I only tested with Basic Authentication; I did not try Kerberos. Since you are making a single hop to another server, I would expect simple NTLM to fail. See KB 315673 for a description of single versus double hop setups when working with IIS configurations.

Jun 05 2009 by robmcm
joe_l

I need to re-download the FPSE 2008 package but http://www.rtr.com/fpse/ seems to be offline. Can I download the package from someone here.

Thanks,
Joe

Jun 25 2009 by joe_l
joe_l

I followed this doc and it fixed the UNC issue for both IIS 6.0 and IIS7.0.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd296641(WS.10).aspx

However since I have multiple IIS7 servers what is the best wat to add FPSE to each server? Anyone have a script they can share or some ideas? I was thinking of trying to call the owsadm.exe from one server using PsExec (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896649.aspx) to execute on the remote servers.

Jul 22 2009 by joe_l
joe_l

IS 7.0 supports a new shared configuration environment, which must be disabled before installing FPSE 2002. (Note: Shared configuration is not supported with FPSE 2002.)

You can make this work by installed the FPSE on each server and extending the website on each server. Logins will work for each server IP. I tested this. However, to streamline provisioning (adding extenstions to each web on each server), please see my question in the previous post.

Jul 23 2009 by joe_l
melinda d

Joe...

Could you share any information on disabling the shared configuration environment?

Thanks,
Melinda

Aug 27 2009 by melinda d
jurrinus

I am trying to install FPSE on a Vista machine. Now this is a standalong laptop and is not linked to any domain or server.

Well could some show me how to add FPSE to and existing WEB on a Vista O/S because the method explained in the installation document assumes your hooked to some sharpoint server. Evertime I try to use the sharepoint server admin it challenges me and when I put in the laptops, valid user name and password, it will not allow me in.

Jerry

Sep 11 2009 by jurrinus
robmcm

Hi jurrinus,

Actually there is nothing in this document that requires using a SharePoint server - but the FPSE web-based management tool is named "Microsoft SharePoint Administrator" because that tool can also be used for SharePoint administration if you installed SharePoint. (I apologize for the confusion - and I admit that it wasn't named well.)

That being said, if you are being prompted for a user name and password on your laptop, I would check to see if you have any authentication methods enabled for the "Microsoft SharePoint Administration" web site. To do so, open the "Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager" under "Administrative Tools", select the "Microsoft SharePoint Administration" web site, and double-click the "Authentication" feature. You need to disable anonymous, and enable Windows Authentication (which is preferred) or Basic Authentication (which is not preferred.)

Sep 22 2009 by robmcm
micnet

I cannot extend a website. When I go to Microsoft Sharepoint Administration, I am greeted by "HTTP Error 503. The service is unavailable." The url is http://psesvr01:8532/fpadmdll.dll. Does this port have to opened in the firewall?

Oct 26 2009 by micnet
micnet

Well, just for S&G's, I opened port 8532 for the local network but it is still unavailable. So if anyone has any suggestion, I would be greatly appreciative.

Oct 26 2009 by micnet

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