IIS Informant: Configuring FrontPage Server Extensions

When I try to configure Microsoft FrontPage 2000 Server Extensions, I receive the error message The document root of the web server where you are trying to install the server extensions already contains a disk-based web. I have four Web sites running on a Windows NT 4.0 server. Although the server extensions are present on one site, why can't I install them on the other sites?

The error message you received indicates that you're trying to create more than one FrontPage-extended Web site in a directory tree. For example, imagine that D:inetpubwwwroot is the location for your default Web site and that this site is a FrontPage-extended Web site by default. If you create a new Web site at D:inetpubwwwrootwebsite1, then try to add the FrontPage Server Extensions to that subfolder, you receive the error message you mentioned above. To address this problem, make sure your Web site home folders aren't nested.

The unfortunate naming of the inetpubwwwroot folder, which the OS creates by default when IIS is installed, causes this problem. The name "wwwroot" implies that you should place all new Web content in the folder. This naming scheme is a hold-over from the days when IIS supported only one Web site. However, with the introduction of IIS 4.0 and the ability to create and host multiple Web sites, Microsoft should have named the wwwroot folder "defaultwebroot."

Typically, IIS administrators create a new folder named, for example, websites in the root of a nonsystem drive. Administrators then create all new Web sites in subfolders of websites. This approach avoids the problem you've described and separates your content from the default installation location.

Alternatively, you might want to nest content for your FrontPage-extended sites and let different groups administer each folder within the root site. In this case, you use the FrontPage client software to create a subweb. A subweb is a folder inside a FrontPage-extended site that has FrontPage Server Extensions installed and that you administer as a separate unit. Administrators can access a subweb as they would access a directory, through its URL (e.g., the URL for subweb1 would be http://extendedweb/subweb1, the URL for subweb2 would be http://extendedweb/subweb2).

Microsoft developed the subweb technology to give different departments administrative, design, and content control over portions of a Web site. Subwebs offer the only way you can nest folders on a server with FrontPage Server Extensions installed.