windows 2003 servers

[Jenny]

Is any one actually working successfully on a windows 2003 server? Quite a few people seemed to have had problems but they were fasthosts, so I don't know if it their servers or the windows 2003 in genereal.
Any feedback would be interesting!
Jenny

[Darren]

Hi there.

I have set a test Windows 2003 server here, which runs Actinic OK. The one thing I did notice about it, is that it did not run perl even though perl was installed and it was mapped to the cgi-bin.

The only way I have been able to get the server working so far, is to enable all cgi extensions, if I do not, the server comes up with a "page cannot be displayed" error when running perl.

Hope this is of use

[Darren]

The only way I have been able to get the server working so far, is to enable all cgi extensions

I must point out that this is not very secure, but I can't get it working yet any other way!

[Jenny]

Should people be warned about not hosting on windows 2003 servers or not do you think? My site works some of the time but tends to fail at busy times of the day with cgi failures and http header errors..
Jenny

[Darren]

My site works some of the time but tends to fail at busy times of the day with cgi failures and http header errors..

I am guessing here, but it could be down to your host using throttling on your webspace, you could try asking them to relax this.

[Jenny]

Hence the question is anybody else struggling with windows2003 servers, trying to get my proof together..
Jenny

[jonnyatom5]

Hello there

I thought I'd reply to this thread although it's old because it is relevant to our problem.

We've just opened an actinic store which is on a Windows 2003 server with Fasthosts. It's the enterprise type server with load balance, supposedly to give more reliability. Everything works fine until we go to pass all the information to our credit card clearing house (protx) when we get a CGI timeout.

After conversations with Fasthosts it seems there's some incompatibility with Actinic on this type of server and they said that Actinic is aware of this. Is this true?

I think we may have to downgrade the server back to a 2003 single load to overcome the problem. I shall post any findings back here. If anyone has had similar problems, please post so that others don't waste hours trying to find answers

Regards Garry

[Jenny]

I don't think Fasthosts can cope with actinic on any reseller server type, windows or linux.. (My opinion!) I have moved my actinic sites that were on the new servers away from them, too many problems finally tipped the balance.. The old windows servers seem fine with actinic so I have left them where they are.. You are welcome to contact me direct and give me a ring of you want to..
Jenny

[deanp]

Hi

I am just about to move our site to Win 2003 after successful testing to ensure all is fine.

I had difficulty setting it up at first but this was mostly to do ith the vague support received from Actinic about win 2003.

We use a hosting company called Protec web (protecweb.co.uk) and the shared ssl with them. Protecweb have the best support I have ever encountered and the packages are fantastic.

[Shynee]

I use protec as well and I agree there support is fantastic

I am about to add an actinic shop to my site

Can you tell me what advice they gave you to set things up correctly

[jonnyatom5]

We downgraded the server on Fasthosts to a Windows 2003, single spread package which the tech guy thought would work, but alas the same problem occurs. So with very little help from fasthosts (and slow at that) we decided to move the site onto a Verio windows server.

Hopefully this will work, I'll post my findings here.

Garry

[deanp]

Regarding Protec

If using the shared ssl all I asked them to do was map the secure catalog url to the non secure catalog.

e.g

https://www.mysecure.com/acatalog/

mapped to

http://www.mysite.com/acatalog/

If not using shared ssl wih them then all was set up fine already.

They should know what settings u need if u ask them.

My network settings are as follows if u need them.

HTTPPROXYMODE 0
HTTPPROXYADDRESS
HTTPPROXYPORT 80
HTTPPROXYUSER
HTTPPROXYPASSWORD
FTPPROXYMODE 0
FTPPROXYADDRESS
FTPPROXYPORT 21
FTPPROXYUSER
FTPPROXYPASSWORD
SCRIPTID 1
SCRIPTEXT .pl
SMTPHOST mail.mysite.co.uk
WEBSITEURL http://www.mysite.co.uk/
IGNOREPASSIVEERRORS false
USERELATIVECGIURLS false
PATHTOPERL /usr/bin/perl
SSLCATALOGURL https://ws11.prossl.com/mysite-co-uk/acatalog/
SSLCGIBINURL https://ws11.prossl.com/mysite-co-uk/cgi-bin/
SSLPATHFROMCGITOCATALOG D:/Domains/mysite.co.uk/wwwroot/acatalog/
SSLCODEBASE ./
SSLFTPHOST ftp.mysite.co.uk
SSLFTPUSERNAME mysite.co.uk
SSLFTPPASSWORD ********************
SSLPATHTOCGIBIN /mysite.co.uk/ssl/cgi-bin/
SSLUSEPASSIVEFTP true
CATALOGURL http://www.mysite.co.uk/acatalog/
CGIBINURL http://www.mysite.co.uk/cgi-bin/
PATHFROMCGITOCATALOG D:/Domains/mysite.co.uk/wwwroot/acatalog/
CODEBASE ./
FTPHOST ftp.mysite.co.uk
FTPUSERNAME mysite.co.uk
FTPPASSWORD ********************
PATHTOCGIBIN /mysite.co.uk/wwwroot/cgi-bin/
USEPASSIVEFTP true
FTPPATHFROMCGITOCATALOG /mysite.co.uk/wwwroot/acatalog/

Thanks

[guitareth]

Moving a client's site from Fasthosts (NT) to Protec Windows 2003 server. Client has Catalog v4.0.7 which worked fine on Fasthosts (one of the few things that did!!) but on testing with Protec/Windows 2003 keep getting errors and if I try to upload it fails to merge files on the server. Actinic support say Catalog v4 is incompatible with Win 2003 but I don't want to have to force client to pay for an upgrade just because I've chosen to change hosts.

Anyone managed to get v4 to work on a Win 2003 server and if so, any tips?

Thanks

[Darren]

Hi there.

Anyone managed to get v4 to work on a Win 2003 server and if so, any tips?

I am afraid not, see if Fasthosts can move you to one of their Linux servers. Ask them at the same time if they can set up a couple of folders for you. The cgi-bin with a permission of 755 and an acatalog folder with permissions of 777.

Hope this helps

[guitareth]

see if Fasthosts can move you to one of their Linux servers.
Thanks, but have ditched Fasthosts altogether. Can thoroughly recommend Protec (http://www.protecweb.co.uk/) for Win 2003 hosting. This is only problem I've had and its clearly a Win 2003/Acrtinic v4 compatabilty issue and nothing to do with Protec.

[Jenny]

I can lend you a FH linux server to test it if you want but don't hold out much hope. I got so fed up I moved all my actinic sites to another company. Contact me on jenny@hansonwebdesign.co.uk
Jenny

[DavidGeran]

We ditched FastHosts at the start of the year after our Actinic shop was unavailable for a total of 5 days during December, prime shopping time :mad: .

The rumour at the time was that they'd been hit by denial of service attacks (as were Worldpay, Nov'03), but we've heard so many 'bad hosting' stories about them since, we'd recommend anyone serious about their service levels to avoid FH at all costs ioho.

Regards,
David

www.youraromatherapy.co.uk

[CymraegKev]

I had lots of problems on Win2003 initially. It was due to not being able to run perl.exe. My host (Maximum ASP) said that because of security issues on W2k the only way they would allow the perl scripts to run was if they mapped the scripts to run using perlis.dll instead. This did not work even though Actinic was configured to use it. In the end my host, upgraded my shared VPS account to a dedicated server for free and effectively told me "to do what I want". So, I installed the free perl software ActivePerl, mapped back to perl.exe and now it is working fine - and I got a dedicated server out of it too....

If you want to check the site and see the cgi working etc it is at : http://www.rugbymemories.com

Hope that helps a little.

Kevin