Create a Vacation Email Template
1. Open Microsoft Outlook. Go to Tools -> Options.

2. Click on the Mail Format tab, and then clear the box next to “Use Microsoft Office Word 2003 to edit e-mail messages” check box. Then click OK.

3. Now go to File -> New -> Mail Message.

4. Fill out the subject and the body of the message. Do not fill out the To: field.

5. Then go to File -> Save As.

6. Under the drop down menu next to “Save as type”, select Outlook Template and then click Save.

7. Go to Tools -> Options again, and then click on the Mail Format tab. This time place a check next to the box that says “Use Microsoft Office Word 2003 to edit e-mail messages”.

Create a Vacation Response Rule 

1. Now go to Tools -> Rules and Alerts.

2. Click on New Rule….

3. Check the option that says “Start from a blank rule”. Then select “Check messages when they arrive”. Then click Next.

4. Scroll down and check the option that says “on this machine only”. Then click Next.

5. Check the option that says “reply using a specific template“. Then in the bottom window click on the underlined words “a specific template”.

6. In the drop down menu next to “Look In:” choose the option User Templates in File System.

7. Then choose the email template you created earlier and click Open.

8. Then click Next and Next again.

9. Under the option “Step 1: Specify a name for this rule” type in “Vacation Response”. Under “Step 2: Setup rule options” check the box next to “Turn on this rule” and “Create this rule on all accounts”. Then click Finish. 

10. Click OK.

Your automatic vacation responses should now be setup.

Please remember that whenever you want your vacation responses to be sent out, you’ll need to keep Microsoft Outlook open on the computer that this was setup on.

What you will need

• Remote access to the server
• WordPress 2.5.1 or whatever the lastest version is
• MySQL – The database. You will want to get the “Essential Package”

What to do

First thing’s first, and you will need to download WordPress and MySQL and put them on a network share. Then you are going to either use Remote Desktop Connection or Advanced Admin Console to gain access to the server.

Install WordPress

After the database is installed, we are going to extract all the WordPress files to “c:\inetpub\blog\”. Feel free to change blog to anything else, but it is easier to name it something obvious. It should look something like this:

You may notice the “wp-config.php” files. All the important database information is in there in plain text, including the password. This is why I recommend installing to the system drive rather than leaving it on the shares. It may be a bit paranoid, but do you want somebody getting access to your database?

After extracting the files, right click on the “blog” directly, and select “Properties”. Find the “Security” tab and click the “Advanced” button. Add the user “IUSR_SERVER”, replacing “SERVER” with whatever you named your server. For instance, I named my server “UMMON”, so I added “IUSR_UMMON”. Now give that user Full Control. Enable “Replace permission entries on all child objects with entries shown here that apply to child objects”, and click okay.

• This will reset permissions on the files, and will revert back to being unchecked when it is done.

Now find “Administrative Tools” and open “Internet Information Services.” Under your computer’s name there is three entries. Open “Websites”, and then find “Default Web Site.” Right click on it and open the “New” group and select “Virtual Directory.” Not Virtual Directory from file. Now give the alias “blog” or whatever you want. This will be the path to your WordPress installation. Click “Next” and set the path to “C:\inetpub\blog” or whatever you named the directory. Click “Next”. It will give you options for the new virtual directory. Tell it to “Read”, and “Run scripts”.

Now you are done setting up the web service side of things.

Now you need to create the database.

Configure Database

If you haven’t installed MySQL yet, head over here first. Go the the start menu, and run “MySQL Command Line Client”. This will immediately ask you to enter a password. Enter the password you used when setting up MySQL. Now you need to create the database that WordPress is going to use. We’re going to use the name “wordpress” for the database. Feel free to change the name to whatever you want. It should look like this:

mysql> create database wordpress;
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.01 sec)

Now that we have created the database, we need to create a user specifically for WordPress because using the root account is very unsafe and we recommended that you never do it. So we are going to create the username and give it permission to use the new database. The username we are going to use is “wpadmin” and the password “wppassword”. It should look like this:

mysql> use wordpress;
Database changed
mysql> GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON wordpress.* to wpadmin@localhost IDENTIFIED BY 'wppassword';
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.01 sec)

Now you have the database and the info you need. Again, you will need to remember this or write it down.

Configure WordPress

Now navigate to your blog. It should look something like: “https://yourserver.homeserver.com/blog/” and you should see a page like this:

Just follow the screens until you get to the database configuration page. Use “wordpress” for the database name, “wpadmin” for the username and “wppassword” for the password. Don’t change the database host, but feel free to change the table prefix if you so desire, or if you are hosting more than one wordpress installation on the database. Just input the information that you want for the rest of it, and you’re done. Seriously, that is it. Just log into the site with the password it supplies and change whatever you want. You are a happy owner of a WordPress Blog.

Oh, the password is randomly generated, and that was the password for a testblog site I made just for this tutorial. So I know it does work. And for those wondering, that was a test install, not my main.

If you’re interested in running a website from your home server, you may have considered various options, including running PHP. But running PHP with IIS can be fraught with problems – or at least was, until WGS reader, Christopher Courtney, wrote the following guide to installing PHP for IIS on Windows Home Server. Over to Christopher…

Because running IIS and Apache really isn’t feasable, one needs to be able to install PHP into IIS. If you have tried before or searched for how, you will notice many different ways, and a lot of problems with doing so. I’ve tried several times and gotten the same problem, but finally fixed it and got PHP working under IIS. Now I am going to share it.

What You Will Need

• Remote Desktop Connection or Advanced Admin Console
• Regedit
• PHP 5.2.5 files zipped
• PECL modules for PHP 5.2.5 – For added support, functionality, and compatibility.
• MySQL Download – optional but recommended, many php applications require sql. And MySQL has a free version.

What to Do

You will need to download PHP. There are a number of issues with the installer, so we are going to be using the zipped file. Make sure the zip file is accessible from the server (it needs to be in one the shares, or on the SYS drive of the server.

You will need then need to gain remote access to your Windows Home Server box (Use a Remote Desktop Connection or Advanced Admin Console).

Install PHP

1. Extract the files from the PHP zip and place the files in “C:\php”. Extract the PECL modules to “C:\php\ext”.
   
2. Rename C:\php\php.ini-recommended to “C:\php\php.ini”.
3. Open both the php.ini file you have now and uncomment cgi.force_redirect in php.ini and set it to 0
   
4. Find SMTP = localhost and make sure it is uncommented. If your mail server is somewhere else you may specify it here. Also set this line just below the above: sendmail_from = someone@yourhost.com
5. Change session.save_path as “session.save_path=C:\php\sessions” and make the directory C:\php\sessions
6. Set the line “extension_dir” as “extension_dir = “C:\PHP\ext”.
7. Uncomment the following extensions:

   extension=php_mssql.dll
   extension=php_msql.dll
   extension=php_mysql.dll
   extension=php_mysqli.dll
   extension=php_java.dll
   extension=php_ldap.dll
   extension=php_iisfunc.dll
   extension=php_imap.dll
   extension=php_filepro.dll
   extension=php_gd2.dll
   extension=php_gettext.dll
   extension=php_dba.dll
   extension=php_dbase.dll
   extension=php_dbx.dll
   extension=php_mbstring.dll
   extension=php_pdf.dll
   extension=php_pgsql.dll
   extension=php_sockets.dll
   extension=php_xmlrpc.dll
   extension=php_xsl.dll
   extension=php_zip.dll

8. This will enable you to use pretty much any database you may have installed. Additionally, it should allow you to use most functions for php that you will need.
9. This part may not be necessary, but it was definitely for me. Go to “C:\” an right click on “Properties”. Go to the Security Tab, and click on the “Advanced Button”. Enable “Replace permission entries on all child objects with entries shown here that apply to child objects”, and click okay.
   
10. Go to Control panel > System Properties > Advanced Tab > Click “Environment Variables”.
    
11. Now add “C:\PHP;” to the very beginning.
12. Now run “regedit.exe” or Start Registry Editor (same program)
13. Add HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\PHP\IniFilePath = “C:\php” to the registry.
    
14. Open Internet Services Manager which is in your Administrative Tools.
15. Right Click on Web Service Extensions located on the left hand side and choose Add a new web service extension. Enter in php and click add. Browse to C:\php\php5isapi.dll. Also set extension status to allow. Click “Okay”.
    
16. Right Click on websites and choose properties. Go to the Documents tab and add index.php as a start document. Go to the Home Directory Tab and click on Configuration. Now go to the mappings tab and click on add. Enter .php for the extension and enter “C:\php\php5isapi.dll” in the executable textbox. Make sure all verbs is checked and click ok, click ok, click ok. You are done installing it. Now you need to test it.
    
17. Go to C:\Inetpub\wwwroot and make a new text file and name it phpinfo.php. Open it up with your text editor ant put this in it: <?php phpinfo(); ?>.
18. Open a web Browser and go to http://SERVER/phpinfo.php
19. If you followed all the instructions, it should work fine.

Installing Your Database

Once you have downloaded the MySQL installer, run it on the server. I would run step by step through the install, but pretty much all the defaults are optimal for what we want. It’s going to run using as little resources as possible, and a small number of concurrent connections. This is what we want, because this the enviroment we are going to be running. We’re not running a dedicated database server after all.

So, that’s how to install PHP for IIS on Windows Home Server – we’ll be featuring a number of technical guides from Christopher over the next few weeks, all of which will be stored on the forthcoming We Got Served Wiki.