I'm trying to set up Links on my home computer, but I'm having more trouble with the other software than links. I'm running NT 4 Workstation with Service Pack 4. I've installed Personal Web Server 4.0 from the NT Option Pack and the most recent version of Active Perl for Win32. As far as I know, I've done everything correctly.... but I've done all of my work on Links with Linux 4.x and up and not on NT.

I've set my paths to the correct partition (using the drive letter) and the Perl files will not execute correctly. I get the error message "%1 is not a valid Windows NT application. " for files with a .cgi extension and files with a .pl extension prefer to be downloaded. If I download them, they are not error messages, but the actual file. If I allow NT to execute the file a command prompt window opens and attempts to execute the Perl program.

What changes do I need to make to be able to run Perl so I can get Links up and running locally so I don't have to dial-up every time I want to do some experimenting. Once I get everything working here, I'll be more than glad to put together all of my notes for anyone else that wants to do the same on NT Workstation.

are you commited to using IIS?

Apache makes a version (for free) for windows, and that is a snap to get in and running. I had it going in 5 minutes.

http://www.apache.org/

--Mark

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You can reach my by ICQ at UID# 8602162

If you do need to use PWS. I have in running sucessfully on my Win95 machine. However, you have to use .pl files and to do so you need to edit the registry to tell the web server to execute *.pl files using the perl interpretor.

I've actually got a proper version of perl for Win32 machines, which may be better than Active Perl.

Let us know how you get on anyway,

--
Ed Bownass - edward@bownnet.demon.co.uk
Links mods site - http://www.linksmods.demon.co.uk/

PWS is just a scaled back version of IIS; I would rather use it than the beta Apache software. I want to be able to get Links up and running on PWS just so that I can honestly say it can be done. I've had a number of people ask me how to do it and I'd like to be able to send them detailed instructions on how it is done. As for changing the extensions to .pl, that's absolutely no problem. I've got a text editor that will make all the necessary changes to the file names and calls within the files with its built-in scripting host.

Ed -- what do I need to change in the registry to tell the PWS to execute the .pl files correctly?

Just my 2 cents, but I really liked O'Reilly's Website. Recently though I haven't been able to find the free 1.1e version.

As for Perl, stick with Activestate if you are doing anything Windows related, it's the way to go!

Cheers,

Alex

The registry stuff you have to change is in the key:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\W3Svc\Parameters\Script Map]

It's pretty self explanatory from there on.

--
Ed Bownass

..from what I recall installing ActivePerl asks/queries for association info upon install.

The defaults (and what I used) associated .pl files to be able to be run on the server like .exe files, .cgi files were associated with the perl interpreter for IIS mapping and I added .plx for the IIS 'plug-in' interpretation of perl scripts.

..thus the actual scripts called via the browser all needed to be either .cgi or .plx (both perl scripts) yet include scripts can remain .pl files.

-john

JohnH,

I've had no problems setting up perl on NT Server. If you had read the entire string, you would see we were discussing PWS and NT Workstation, not NT Server and IIS.

Did you ever get an answer as to why it says %1 1 is not a valid Windows NT application???

I'm getting this too and I can't figure it out. I've installed perl, I'm running NT with IIS 4.0.

What permissions do I set at the directory level to replace all that unix chmod crap?

The %1 stuff is because the NT is configured to run .pl files but not .cgi files as Perl programs. Alex had a really good post where he gave a link to the exact document in the ActivePerl documentation. It was posted in the last few days so it shouldn't be hard to find in a search.

As for chmod and NT... don't worry about it. Assuming that your files are on an NTFS partition, don't touch your permissions. By default, if you FTP in and make changes they'll be world-readable on IIS. You won't run into problems until you start making security permission changes (within NT, not an FTP session) to files. If you try to do a CHMOD command in FTP on an NT system, you're not going to change anything. The securities on NT are similar to Unix, but CHMOD is not supported by NT.

Given the relationship between NT server-workstation and IIS4 and PWS4 I assumed Activestate Perl would install the same..

All installations I have done of ASPerl have given be various options to associate .pl or .cgi to the webserver or command line..

..then again, can PWS4 even run .cgi?
That could be a part MS scaled back for all I know about PWS.

-john