Many people switching from Windows 98 to Windows ME or XP Home Edition have been disappointed to find that PWS is not included. Microsoft also does not support the installation of any web server on these products. Many people have witty answers like "install Apache" or "switch to Linux." These might be realistic workarounds in their eyes, but are clearly not an option for most people who would be asking the question in the first place.
Here are explanations from Microsoft's Knowledge Base:
KB #266456 Personal Web Server Is Not Included with Windows Millennium Edition
KB #304197 Personal Web Server Is Not Included with Windows XP Home Edition
The latter KB article, when it was numbered Q310090, actually described how to work around the problem in Windows XP. They have since removed that article and renumbered it, and the advice they gave has vanished without a trace (that'll teach me to not copy it locally!). Their current statement is that the only way to get web server support within XP Home is to upgrade from a previous 9x-based OS with a web server installed.
If you're going to go that route (or if you have yet to upgrade to XP Home), here is a helpful link for getting the Option Pack to install in Windows ME:
http://billsway.com/notes_public/PWS_Win... (If you have Windows 95 or Windows 98, and don't have a web server installed, see
Article #2075 for info on configuring the Option Pack.)
On the other hand, if you want to experiment some, you can see this advice from Richard Sandoz, who explains how to get IIS working on XP Home:
Google Groups: microsoft.public.inetserv... You can also see some discussions at
www.tek-tips.com and
webthang.co.uk.
Here is a tutorial for setting up an Apache web server on XP Home:
~linkid(300, '', 'http://rain.prohosting.com/~starman2/apache.shtml')~
If you need ASP support, I recommend developing on Windows 2000 Pro or Windows XP Pro. If your machine can support it, I would use Windows 2000 Server or Advanced Server (or if you have access to .NET Server, use that -- I've been using it for months without difficulty). You should use whatever environment would most accurately reflect your true production setting. I don't know too many commercial web sites that are running on Windows 9x, but I do know that there are several problems reported daily by people developing in one architecture and deploying on another... these are mostly due to security / permissions issues on the deployment machine(s) that didn't exist in the development environment.
If you are stuck with Windows XP Home, here are some 3rd party web server products that support ASP in some form or another:
Abyss Web Server Bart-Ware Tiny WebServer Cassini (Sample Web Server for ASP.NET) InstantServers MiniPortal Sambar Server And here are some alternative web server products:
AnalogX SimpleServer:WWW Apache Aweris WebServer bj HTTP Web Server BRS WebWeaver Deep Forest Quik-Serv DWebPro Home Web Server KeyFocus Web Server Perception LiteServe Perception LiteWeb PlugAndPlay Servers Savant Xeneo Web Server Xerver