Microsoft Diamond in the Rough

[pee-air]

I was looking for a half-assed decent browser to run on my Quadra 950, and I settled on Internet Explorer 4.01. Part of the Internet Explorer archive that I downloaded contained a little thing called Microsoft Personal Web Sharing.

I had never heard of Microsoft Personal Web Sharing before. At least, not for the Macintosh. So I was eager to test it out. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that it was actually quite good.

Microsoft Personal Web Sharing is very easy to configure and get running on a 68k Macintosh. It includes a guestbook for visitors of your site to sign, the ability to allow users to send you private messages, a rather comprehensive logging system, perhaps the best site statistics information that I've seen of any web server software for the Macintosh, and, my personal favourite, the ability to mount server volumes in your web browser.

After playing with Microsoft Personal Web Server for a bit, I began wondering what ever happened to it. Was it so wrought with security holes that Microsoft just killed it? It just got me to thinking of why I might not want to run this software on one of my Macintosh computers. Does anyone know why it might be a bad idea to use this software as opposed to say MacHTTP?

 

[SiliconValleyPirate]

It became the 'Personal Web Sharing' feature in Mac OS 8, that carried on to OS 9.2. Yes, you did hear me right - Apple used Microsoft HTTP server software for Mac OS. It's not very secure, but if you are running it on a 68k Mac there are seldom very many risks, although there might be to other machines on the LAN. When I found out it was written by MS I turned it off on all my OS 8/9 installs

 

[QuadSix50]

It became the 'Personal Web Sharing' feature in Mac OS 8, that carried on to OS 9.2. Yes, you did hear me right - Apple used Microsoft HTTP server software for Mac OS. It's not very secure, but if you are running it on a 68k Mac there are seldom very many risks, although there might be to other machines on the LAN. When I found out it was written by MS I turned it off on all my OS 8/9 installs

How would you compare it to something like MacHTTP? (That's what I use on my 68K Mac to host our family homepage.)

 

[alk]

Poorly. PWS doesn't have the same features that the professional servers have. I haven't done any speed tests, but I would wager good money that the pro servers (WebStar, etc) are much faster under loads.

As for logging software, there are plenty of third party log analyzers for ASIP, WebStar, etc.

Peace,

Drew

 

[pee-air]

You can't compare PWS to WebStar or ASIP! That's like comparing a Honda Civic with a Freightliner Tractor. There's no comparison. It's almost like trying to compare WebStar or ASIP with Apache; no comparison! They're entirely different beasts.

 

[QuadSix50]

Goodness! I figured that PWS was more of a POS compared to MacHTTP and some others, but talk about laying it on a bit thick!

 

[SiliconValleyPirate]

That's like comparing a Honda Civic with a Freightliner Tractor.

Please refrain from using the name 'Honda Civic' in vein

 

[pee-air]

That's like comparing a Honda Civic with a Freightliner Tractor.

Please refrain from using the name 'Honda Civic' in vein

I wasn't using it in vain. I was using it to convey a sense of scale. Like comparing a garden hose to the water department's intake pipe. You can't say that the water department's intake pipe is better than your garden hose, because they're two completely different things. The intake pipe might be better than the garden hose for filling your pool, but I wouldn't want to be watering my lawn with such a pipe.

 

[QuadSix50]

That's like comparing a Honda Civic with a Freightliner Tractor.

Please refrain from using the name 'Honda Civic' in vein

Would an artery suffice?