(Please Note: WebCom does not support the FrontPage server extension for displaying a hit counter on your page. Instead, WebCom provides a counter of identical functionality. We urge you to use our counter, which is simple to use, offers greater control over the font, colors, and borders of your counter, and is substantially more efficient than the FrontPage counter, as it is tailored specifically to the WebCom environment. Please use the WebCom Graphical Hit Counter to ensure your pages load as quickly as possible. )

WebCom is currently running the FrontPage 2000 extensions. When domains are configured for use with FrontPage, our system installs the proper files and directories required for FrontPage 2000. The FrontPage 2000 extensions support both the FrontPage 97 and FrontPage 98 client software. WebCom users who have already been using FrontPage 97 or 98 with Webcom will continue to use the old extensions unless they decide to upgrade to the newer FrontPage 2000 extensions. There is no need to upgrade unless you have the FrontPage 2000 software.

This documentation is written with multiple versions of FrontPage in mind. Hopefully it will be useful to you. If you find any errors, please report them to webmaster@webcom.com.

To use Microsoft FrontPage with your WebCom site, you must have your own domain name (and thus you must use the WebCom BudgetSite, BusinessSite, or WebCommerce service plans). Until your domain name is active, you will not be able to publish your documents directly to the WebCom server. If you try to publish your site through FrontPage before your domain is active, you may receive an error message (FP2000), or you may be prompted to use the Microsoft Publishing Wizard (FP97, FP98), which we do not recommend using due to its complexity and generally confusing design. It normally takes only a few days for a domain to be registered during which time you may want to begin developing your site locally.

If you do not have a domain name, you can still create and maintain your site using FrontPage, but you will be unable to use any of the webbots or publishing capabilities. For the publishing of FrontPage webs that do not have domain names, we recommend saving your FrontPage web pages as HTML, and using File Transfer Protocol (FTP) to publish your site.

Before you can use FrontPage with your WebCom account, you must activate the FrontPage extensions for your domain. To do so, follow these simple steps (To report any problems enabling Microsoft FrontPage for your domain, please contact WebCom Technical Support at support@webcom.com).

1. Login to your account by clicking on Control Panel Login in the left column this page.
2. Choose Enable MS FrontPage from the main menu.
3. On the next screen, you'll see a list of all the subdomains for which you can activate FrontPage extensions for. Check the checkbox for each subdomain that you would like to have FrontPage extensions active.
4. Click the Submit button at the bottom of the page to submit your changes. You will see a confirmation screen telling you that the changes have been made, and that Microsoft FrontPage has been enabled for use with your domain name. That's all there is to it!

PLEASE NOTE: If you have or ever plan on having more than one FrontPage activated domain in your WebCom account, please see Planning Your FrontPage Webs for important tips about planning your FrontPage webs.

When you enable Microsoft FrontPage extensions for your domain name, several directories and new files are created in your WebCom directory. Please do not edit, delete, move, or rename any of these files or directories. Doing so will probably cause FrontPage to not work correctly with your domain. To remove these files and directories from your account, simply deactivate FrontPage for your domain (see below).

Any directory beginning with "_vti" contains important files which are needed to utilize Microsoft FrontPage with your Domain name. In addition there is a file named _vti_cnf.html located in the directory your domain is configured to use. When you uncheck the Enable for use with FrontPage box, the files and directories associated with Microsoft FrontPage are removed from your account. In addition, there is one directory called "_private" that is created for you. This directory is a place where Microsoft FrontPage stores your template files and other HTML fragment files.

To deactivate FrontPage for your domain, simply follow the above procedure, but uncheck the Enable for use with FrontPage box.

If you deactivate and later reactivate Microsoft FrontPage for your domain name, or you change the directory that your domain points to while the Microsoft FrontPage box is checked, the following information will be lost:

• Any users (Administrator or Author) are deleted from that web; you must re-enter them.
• Any subwebs created will be orphaned. The HTML content will be intact; however, you will not be able to manage the subweb via Microsoft FrontPage. This problem can be resolved by republishing the subweb.
• Any search indexes that your have created must be recreated. This is usually done automatically by the FrontPage Explorer when you open the web for the first time.

Publishing your web site with FrontPage is fairly easy. Before you start, make sure that you have configured your domain to be FrontPage enabled, that you are connected to the Internet, and that your domain name is currently active. If you are sure of those two requirements, you can proceed by following these steps:

That should be it. At this point FrontPage publishes your site to your WebCom account online. If you are not publishing for the first time, or you are publishing a sub web, the steps are essentially the same. If you have problems with this procedure (such as FrontPage invoking the Web Publishing Wizard instead of publishing), take a look at trouble shooting section below.

For problems using FrontPage with WebCom, please see our FrontPage Trouble Shooting: Tips and Frequently Asked Questions page.