Hi Matthew and welcome to the fun world of Umbraco development :-)

I think it would be nice if you could post the steps you have taken trying to get the site up and running so far so we can get a sense of where you are in the process. I think it will be much easier to guide you then.

Do you also have a dump of the database or do you just need to connect to the live database?

What version of Windows are you running and what version of Umbraco are you trying to install?

Looking forward to hear more from you.

/Jan

I am on Windows 7 and using Umbraco 4.0.3.

So far I've copied the files over to my wwwroot and created an application in IIS. I do have a dumb of the database as a .mdf file.

Ok...what problems are you having trying to setup the site in IIS? Getting YSOD or what is the issue?

/Jan

right now I get a service unavailable when I visit in the browser. One thing I'm not completely sure how to do is connect the database properly.

Ok...

Let's start by getting the database created from the backup.

Do you already have mssql server 2005 epxress (or 2008) installed on your machine?

If so you should be able to connect to it and then go to "Databases" and right click this item.

Now choose "Attach" - from the dialogue that appears you should be able to click "add" and then find the .mdf file on your disk.

Then the database should be created without any problems.

Now you need to create a database user for it.

To do this you need to go to "Security" -> "Logins" and right click on "Logins" to "create new login". Give the account a name and choose "SQL server authentication". Then enter a password.

Next in the same window go to "user mapping". Here you need to select the database you have just created from the backup. Once that is done you can provide your users with the neccesary roles. On local install I usually check them all except the two that is called "db_denydatawriter" and "db_denydatareader".

Once you have done this we can have look at the IIS stuff.

Let me know if the above makes sense or if there is something you're in doubt about.

/Jan

Jan. Thanks. I am all caught up to this point. I'm ready to move on when you are.

Great :-)

So now you need to get the site up and running...

Ok, in order to make the site connect to the database you need to specify the connection string in the web.config file.

To do that open the web.config file in your editor and go to the appSettings section where you need to modify the connection string to the DB.

<add key="umbracoDbDSN" value="server=.\SQLEXPRESS;database=nameofyourdatabase;user id=nameofthedatabaseuser;password=thepasswordforthedatabaseuser" />

Unless you have renamed your MSSQL server express instance the ".\SQLEXPRESS" name should not be changed. Otherwise specify the name of your server instance instead.

When that is done it's time to have a look at the folder permissions.

Make sure that the network service has full permissions on the root folder of your Umbraco installation and make sure these permissions are inherited on all files and folders. I can't remember if it's neccesary to do this for the IUSR as well with v4. (After you have managed to make your local copy work you can always change the permissions if you don't like give these users/services full permissions - But I must admit that I'm not an expert at this stuff at all :-)).

Ok...now it's time to setup the site in IIS.

You have probably already done some of this but I'm taking it from the top.

1) Create a new site in IIS

2) Point it to the root folder of your Umbraco instance

3) Make sure you have added the hostname in your .hosts file

4) Make sure the application pool is running .NET 2 and in "classic" mode with the network service as identity.

5) Make sure you have installed ASP.NET ajax 1.0, which you can find here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=ca9d90fa-e8c9-42e3-aa19-08e2c027f5d6

6) Now try to browse your site...

Does it show? If not please post the potential error message you get.

Crossing my fingers that you'll be succesfull :-)

/Jan

Ok. went through the steps and got this error.

HTTP Error 500.19 - Internal Server Error

The requested page cannot be accessed because the related configuration data for the page is invalid.

And you have installed ASP.NET Ajax 1.0 as mentioned in my previous post?

/Jan

Yes. I do have it installed.

After looking back. I remembered that I couldnt find the .hosts file you mentioned to add my hostname. Maybe that has something to do with it.

Hmmm...that sounds odd?

When you're trying to access the site do you then just go to localhost in the browser?

Anyway I don't think that is the issue, since you would not even get a YSOD if you tried to access the site and it did not exist.

Perhaps you should try to use this web.config that Petr has posted as his second post in here: http://forum.umbraco.org/yaf_postsm47253_A-version-compatible-with-Windows-Server-2008--ASPNET-35.aspx

(Remember to copy over your connection string).

/Jan

Hmm. well that didn't work either. It just created a whole page full of new errors.

What does the new errors say?

/Jan

I'll include a screenshot with this That shows the error screen I am receiving. Maybe this will be helpful.

I am still having the problems.

Hey. just to update this post, I got the site working. Turns out IT had changed the name of the server the sql database was running on. So it wasnt SQLExpress. I just wasn't aware of that change. Thanks for all the help.

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