Commentary Archive

 Back to Lessons Page

ColdFusion & 127.0.0.1 on Windows XP

(July '05)

So I finally got around to installing Windows XP. Why the wait? 'Cause Windows 2000 did the job, and I'm not one to fix that which ain't broke. Personally, I'd still be using Windows 3.1 or DOS if not for all the incompatibility problems with everyone else. For some reason, I have to be like everyone else since they won't be like me. And since I'm really a "website guy" rather than a "server guy," I prefer to spend my time designing and programming, rather than peering into new operating system and setup issues.

Anyway, I set things up, installed IIS and the latest ColdFusion MX, and immediately discovered "problems" with things like "127.0.0.1/mywebsite". First, there's no "Personal Web Manager" (PWM) as part of the XP thing, so instead of using PWM to set up an alias, I did this:

On the website folder, right-click to "properties", select the "Web Sharing" tab, activate web sharing and enter the desired name (alias).

Past experience suggested that things should now work. But they didn't. Instead, "127.0.0.1/mywebsite" got me a little pop-up asking for my username and password. This little pop-up was very persistent and wouldn't go away. After a bunch more twiddling and geeking, I discovered 2 more steps that solved the problem

On the website folder, right-click to "properties", select the "Sharing" tab, and check the "share this folder" box. Any share name is fine.

Go to: Start > control panel > administrative tools. Then

  • Open "Internet Information Services"
  • Click down through the directory thing until you find your alias (entered above in "Web Sharing").
  • right-click the alias, select Properties, "Directory Security" tab, then click "Edit" beside "Enable Anonymous...", and then check the "Anonymous Access" box.

Experience suggests that different installs behave differently; however, this was the most complicated of the various installs. (Other installs require a subset of the above.) In addition, WHERE you put "mywebsite" on your system affects the hoops through which you must jump. For example, putting "mywebsite" in C:\InetPub\wwwRoot\" can makes things simpler than if "mywebsite" is on your desktop.