Frontpage Extensions

_vti_bin and vti_pvt folders missing

[Sunnydale]

I have just set up 2 additional sites in Frontpage 2002 alongside one which I've had going for a while and upgraded my hosting package. I have just realised I no longer have folders _vti_bin and vti_pvt and have been getting error messages regarding Frontpage Server extenions when I am trying to publish. I believe I may have deleted these folders by mistake - is there any way I can get them back - Thanks for any help.

[bill]

You may need to ask your host to reinstall the extensions for your account. Some hosts have a button to do this in their control panel.

[webdude]

I believe, and somebody correct me if I am wrong here, but Microsoft does not recommend using the FrontPage extensions in a hosting enviroment. In fact, they recommend deleteing all FrontPage extensions and references to the directories along with the directories themselves. There have been numerous security holes in the program.

You do not need the FrontPage extensions in order to serve FrontPages. The extensions are for development only. I have several clients that use front pages on my servers and they have had no problems.

What you need to do is have all the FrontPage development done on a development server or in a development enviroment, and when the pages are ready to publish on the public server, simply ftp them over. They should run fine.

[podman]

Is there any way of verifying this - [that I can leave out the VTI_CNF_ ]. I've got a site I'm trying to get up fast, the top part of the site was done in Front Page just to get up code ASAP, the bottom part is generated by programming.

I used front page to upload it's pages, then I FTP'd the rest of the site - - several thousand pages in thousands of directories.

Then I went back to make a FP change, and the stupid program managed to find the all the directories - even though I didn't tell it about them and stick it's _VTI_ sub-directories in each one.

Now I have to spend a day or two deleting the whole site and rebuilding it and uploading it again

[bill]

If you're publishing with FP that will happen. It will add all those _vti* files and folders. If you don't want those extra files and folders added then just publish the whole thing via FTP.

[podman]

Thanks. Wish I'd know a couple of days ago.

It must have added them all in less than 15 minutes - probably it has some fast way of telling the server to do it and bypassed the time-consuming hand-shaking.

I've been running an FTP program to delete the whole mess, and it's been running for several hours. Seems to have to do them one at a time.

[bill]

Although it looks messy those files and folders won't affect your web. They are all tiny files if that's any consolation...it's just that there are several files created for each of yours.

[webdude]

Is there any way of verifying this - [that I can leave out the VTI_CNF_ ].

Bill is right. It will not affect in any way how the pages are displayed.

Like I said before, the best way to do this, if you are locked into using frontpage, is to do all the development on a development machine, search the directories you have created and delete all the auto frontpage folders that get put in your directories. When you are done with that, ftp all the files to the server.

Just a Micro$oft thing :-)

[podman]

Even though those files are small, I have several thousand directories, and each one gets a ruplicate directory made with the little control files. Because of the way files are allocated this results in a mass of disk wastage, plus the overhead of 3 times as many files as I need.

At this point I've deleted everything on the server, I generate my bottom level files in a work directory. Then I use Frontpage for the top level, it doesn't know about all the other files in the subdirectory underneath unless it connects to the server. I manually copy the front page changes from it's directory to my work directory and ftp from there.

Thanks for the help.