In the past couple of weeks, the Sitefinity Team and myself have noticed frustration from people trying to install Sitefinity for the first time. You only get one chance to make a first impression and, it seems, Sitefinity is sometimes tripping down the stairs.
The team is exploring ways to make Sitefinity installation easier. While that is being done, I decided to explore this topic a bit.
First the Basics
At a basic level, Sitefinity is just an ASP.NET web site. It requires IIS and the appropriate .NET framework. In addition, Sitefinity requires a database to store its stuff.
- Web Server (IIS)
- .NET Framework
- Database server
The Installation Guide contains the official system requirements. To keep your initial setup as simple as possible, use SQL Express for the database.
Sadly, there is a ton of complexity to this and most of it is separate from Sitefinity. This setup involves database initialization, database permissions, file permissions, IIS settings, system settings, etc, etc.
Why can't I find Vista-based Web Hosting?
I've evaluated a lot of web products over the years. In almost every case, my trial started on my local machine...not a server.
In the case of Sitefinity & other ASP.NET-based products this presents a problem. My local machine isn't running Windows Server and I doubt your machine is either. You're probably running Vista, XP or maybe Windows 7.
This means our test scenario is unrealistic! No one Almost no one is going to host a production web site on a Windows Vista machine! Sitefinity was made with Windows Server in mind...not Vista.
So what does this mean? Are we required to find a Windows Server machine just to evaluate Sitefinity? Of course not! We'll make it work. My only point in mentioning this is to explain why some of this is messy. We're trying to get a server product running on a consumer operating system. In fact, some versions of Vista are missing basic components required by Sitefinity.
Please understand, this isn't the end of the story. As mentioned, the Sitefinity Team is exploring ways to make all of this easier.
Right-Click, Run As Administrator...
When dealing with Vista, in my experience, the solution to most Sitefinity setup/install problems is to simply to Right-Click and Run as administrator.
- Run the Sitefinity Install as Administrator
- Run Visual Studio as Administrator
- Use IE Web Browser for the initial setup.
- Run your IE Web Browser as Administrator
During the setup, a lot is happening. Sitefinity needs to create a new IIS web site and apply some custom settings. The Sitefinity Project Manager is a web-based application using Windows Authentication. If your web browser is running as you, then it might not have the permissions required to do the setup.
If you're having problems, Uninstall Sitefinity and repeat the installation using the Run as administrator option at every single step!
Ummmm...is that it?
In all honesty, that's a lot of it. I recently assisted with a charity event in Dallas and I spent the first couple of hours chanting Right-click and Run as administrator. It seems to solve a ton of mysterious problems. Run everything (Install, Visual Studio, IE) as administrator!!!
In my next post, I'll detail the procedure I personally use for creating a new Sitefinity web site.
In the meantime, here are some additional resources: