[FX.php List] FMSA7/8 Windows Questions

[Marisa Smith]

I have have been using FX on Mac OS X in various configurations for the past
year, but have recently been engaged to do my first site using Windows
servers.  We are planning to use FMSA8 when it is released, but in the mean
time will be doing our testing on FMSA7.  Since my office is a Mac shop, I
will be using the client's machines for testing, and am trying to be as
prepared as possible before going in and mucking around with their stuff.
I'm hoping the installation and configuration will be as straight-forward as
it was on all my OS X installations, but I've been burned before by this
assumption, so I am trying to do my homework.

I have read the technical specifications for FMSA (both 7 and 8) on the
Filemaker website, and I am curious about the requirement of Windows Server
2003 for the WPE portion.  Since IIS comes with Windows XP Professional,
does anyone know if it is possible to use XP Professional as the operating
system on the machine running the WPE or does it absolutely HAVE TO BE
Windows Server 2003?

Currently all of the client's machines are running XP Pro, so I'm not really
wild about making them pay for an OS upgrade if it is not absolutely
necessary, since the machine in question will only be used as the FMS/WPE
machine.  We are planning to use an existing Apache server to serve the PHP
files.  I certainly don't want to do anything to jeopardize the stability of
the site, but I do want to be judicious with their budget!

If anyone has any recommendations or comments (politely phrased, please!) on
this proposed setup, I'd welcome the feedback.

Thanks in advance for your patience with my Windows Newbie question(s).

Marisa

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Marisa Smith, President
DataSmith Consulting, LLC
9206 Huron River Drive
Dexter, MI 48130
Phone: (734) 426-8077
Fax: (734) 426-7069 ­ NEW!
http://www.datasmithconsulting.net
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