================================= PolyForm 1.0b Release Notes September 28, 1996 ================================= Installation Procedures ------------------------------------- Note: Close all other software, including your Web server, so Setup can update all the necessary files. A good way to check is to press Alt-Tab from the Windows Desktop. Explorer should be the only application running if you are running Windows 95 and File Manager/Program Manager if you are running NT 3.51. Follow these steps to install the PolyForm upgrade. 1. Extract the zip file using WinZip or pkunzip into a temporary directory. 2. Select setup.exe in the File Manager or Windows Explorer and choose OK. 3. Select the Web server you will use with PolyForm. Choose Next. Setup displays the Server Domain Name screen. Note: For any of the Microsoft web servers, select Microsoft IIS Server. For Purveyor or another ISAPI web server, select 'Other ISAPI server. 4. Enter your server's fully qualified domain name and choose Next. Setup displays the Window CGI Directory screen. 5. Select the Windows CGI directory path for your server and choose Next. PolyForm may be able to identify this directory, depending on which Web server you are using. If you need to change the directory, type the path or use the drive and directory boxes to browse. PolyForm must be installed into a directory configured by your Web server software as a Windows CGI directory. Note: For Microsoft IIS and PWS servers, in the Windows CGI Directory dialogue, select the CGI directory path for your server. By default, Microsoft IIS assigns the default directory of "c:\winnt\system32\inetserv\scripts\". Change this according to the existing "scripts" association outlined in your WWW server manager. Take note of the directory you're installing to and choose Next. PolyForm may be able to identify this directory, depending on which Web server you are using. If you need to change the directory, type the path or use the drive and directory boxes to browse. PolyForm must be installed into a directory configured by your Web server software as an ISAPI script directory. Setup may not be able to detect a "scripts" directory on non-Microsoft servers. Use the target directory that is configured to hold ISAPI scripts. On Purveyor, this is usually called "scripts". 6. Enter the complete URL of the Windows CGI directory for your server in the format http://your.domain.name/cgi-win/, where your.domain.name is the fully qualified domain name of your Web server, and cgi-win is the directory that has been designated as a Windows CGI directory. Choose Next. Setup displays the Mail Settings screen. Note: For Microsoft IIS and PWS servers, confirm the complete URL of the scripts directory for your server is http://www.mydomain.com/scripts/, where my.domain.name is the fully qualified domain name of your Web server, and /scripts/ is the URL path to the directory that has been designated as an ISAPI script directory. Choose Next. Setup displays the Mail Settings screen. 7. On the Mail Settings page, enter the SMTP server, and the default return email address for email generated by PolyForm. Choose Next to continue. Ask your Web administrator, Internet service provider, or network administrator for this information. Setup displays the Make Backups screen. 8. We recommend that you choose to back up the files that Setup will replace. This includes files from a previous version of PolyForm, as well as any files that PolyForm replaces with more current versions. To back up files that will change, choose Yes. Choose No to skip the backup process. 9. If you choose to back up files, select the directory to use for the backup. Choose Continue. Setup will copy files to your hard disk. Setup displays the Ready to Install screen. 10. Choose Install Now to install PolyForm according to the information you entered. Please note when the PolyForm setup program is copying files to your hard disk, you may receive a dialog message. The file c:\windows\system\xxx.dll is in use and will not-be installed even if all other applications are closed. This commonly will occur with the msvrct20.dll and the ole32.dll files. In this situation, it is safe to choose to ignore the installation of these files. See the Troubleshooting Installation section of this document for more information. 11. If you are running Windows NT 3.51, Setup then displays the Select Program Manager Group dialog. Select a Program Manager Group for the PolyForm icons and choose OK. Setup creates the Program Manager Group if necessary, and adds the icons. For Windows 95 and Windows NT 4.0, Setup installs the icons in a program folder called PolyForm 1.0. 12. Setup displays the PolyForm Release Notes screen. Please note that if you previously installed a PolyForm Demo on your system, you will receive a release note message for Demo Version 1.0b. 13. Read the Release Notes and follow any instructions. Choose OK.. 14. If you receive the message, PolyForm Installation has completed Successfully! Choose OK. Setup closes, revealing your desktop. 15. Immediately after installing PolyForm, use the access control in your Web server to restrict access from the Web to the pftools subdirectory and its subdirectories. The programs and files in these directories must not be accessible to Web browsers. Refer to your server's documentation for information on access control. 16. With version 1.0a, you will now see the Program Manager / Start Menu multiple icons. The second PolyForm CGI and PolyForm Control Panel icons have been added for multiple domains for multiple installs on multi-homed servers. Use either icon if you do not have a multi-homed environment to start PolyForm. ================================= Welcome to PolyForm, the Web Forms Construction Kit. This document contains important information about PolyForm 1.0b Contents: 1. Accessing the PolyForm HTML chapters 2. PolyForm Online 3. Online Help notes 4. PolyForm and ISAPI 5. PolyForm and Web Commander 6. Multi-Homing 7. Troubleshooting Installation 8. Changes since 1.0 Accessing the HTML Documentation ---------------------------------------------------------- There are three PolyForm documentation chapters that are available with this release: - Why use PolyForm? - Installing PolyForm - Getting Started with PolyForm The docs can be accessed by opening the c:\x\PFTOOLS\DOCS\CONTENTS.HTM file in your web browser, where c:\x is the directory where you installed PolyForm PolyForm Online --------------------------- Be sure to take a look around PolyForm Online at http://polyform.ora.com/ Here you'll find tips and tricks, samples of PolyForm in action, software updates and more! Updates apply to the demo software as well, so you can have the latest software for your evaluation. Online Help ------------------ The PolyForm interface comes complete with context sensitive online help. Depending on your operating system, you can either use the 'What's this?' button on the toolbar, or right-click with your mouse to access information about a control or label. In Windows 95 and NT 4.0, text controls display an edit menu when you right click on them. To see help for these controls, right-click the label adjacent to the text control. Microsoft IIS, PWS and ISAPI Installation Notes ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- We recommend that you verify your Microsoft IIS or PWS Server configurations using the procedures listed below. If you are using another ISAPI Server, please read through these instructions for the same basic installation concepts. Inside IIS Web Manager, the directory where PolyForm is installed should be configured in the Server Manager to execute, not read. Setting the directory to read causes two problems; first, a request for /directory/polyform.dll/scriptname is not read as a request for a file called script name in a directory called polyform.dll and fails with a 404 Not Found error message. Second, the subdirectories containing PolyForm templates, mail messages and possibly some of your private, saved information are opened up to browsing by the public. Setting the directory to execute only prevents unauthorized browsing, and tells the server to run polyform.dll. You should verify your File Permissions by using the File Manager interface. File(Start), Run, Winfile.exe. The file permissions must permit the server to operate the program. IIS runs under its own user account, typically IUSR_(machine-name). This is not a login account, but is the context under which ISAPI extensions and cgi programs run. PolyForm reads, writes and executes (the mail client or a post processor) and so IUSR_(machine-name) must have Full Control permissions in the directory in which PolyForm is installed and the \PFTOOLS subdirectory, and read/write permissions in the directories beneath it. These permissions must extend to other directories where PolyForm scripts are configured to read, write or execute, and to the %Systemroot% directory (typically c:\winnt). In the Directory Permissions Dialog Box, we recommend that the "Replace Permissions on Subdirectories" and the "Replace Permissions on Existing Files" check boxes be checked. Using Polyform.dll instead of Polyform.exe --------------------------------------------------------------------- Servers that use ISAPI, such as Microsoft's Internet Information Server, use files called DLLs to interface with CGI applications such as PolyForm. Everywhere you see a reference in the book or documentation to use polyform.exe, substitute "polyform.dll". For example, when requesting PolyForm to send a form to a browser, a Win-CGI server would expect: http://your.domain/cgi-win/polyform.exe/scriptname. An ISAPI server would expect: http://your.domain/scripts/polyform.dll/scriptname PolyForm and Web Commander --------------------------------------------------- Web Commander by default expects Win-CGI applications to have an extension of .wexe To obtain the full feature set of PolyForm when using this server, this type must be changed to .exe as follows: Notes: WebCommander supports "virtual homes". You can set up PolyForm to run on one or more homes. You may want to consider multiple homes in case you wish to run other Windows CGI applications and do not want to disturb their "WEXE" MIME type. Configure WebCommander: 1 Go to the properties for the server you wish to support PolyForm 2 Click the "MIME" tab 3 Rename the "EXE" MIME type to "EXE-OLD", or simply delete it 4 Rename the "WEXE" MIME type to "EXE" Multi-homing -------------------- Web servers that support multiple, virtual homes can utilize PolyForm in several ways. The server may share CGI applications among more than a single home, and Polyform can be used in this way. However, each installation of PolyForm is tied to a specific domain name to enable features such as tamper proof forms. This means that these features will only work for the domain you specified when you installed PolyForm. To give each domain in a multi-homed server full use of the PolyForm feature set, create a CGI directory for each domain, and install a new copy of PolyForm in each of these locations. Troubleshooting Installation --------------------------------------------- During PolyForm Install, some users may encounter a dialog stating that a certain file is in use. Options are provided to: 1. Abort the install 2. Retry, after shutting down other applications that may be using the file. 3. Ignore the installation of this file. Under certain circumstances, a file may remain in use by the operating system, even when no other applications are running. In this situation, it is safe to choose to ignore the installation of this file. A backup of the uninstalled file will be copied to the backup directory you select during the install procedure. If at some point you need to check version information of a particular file, do so by highlighting the file in Explorer or File Manager and pressing Alt+Enter. This will give you more reliable information than file size or date. An install log is also provided to give detailed information about what was installed. Please do not delete this file as it will be needed should you decide to uninstall PolyForm. Changes since 1.0 ------------------------------ 1.0b Service Release Problem fixed in polysmtp.exe that caused some mail servers to be unable to delete mail. (Previously available as a patch) Installed components updated to NT 4.0 versions. 1.0a Service Release Bug fixed in polyform.dll where an error would occur on extremely large POSTs. Problem fixed in polysmtp.exe with certain mail servers sending multiple status codes at connect, resulting in mail error 10053. Bug fixed in install program where OLE control self-registration failed. Bug fixed with posting certain double byte characters. Script Wizard bug fixed where form action was incomplete under some circumstances. Multiple select and copy added to Template Keys window. Program Manager / Start Menu icons now added by domain for multiple installs on multi-homed servers.