ASP.NET DotNetNuke Installation with Visual Web Developer Express
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You're skilled enough with ASP.NET to construct a static website. But the Internet is all about dynamic sites, and adding content to keep visitors (and the search engines) coming back for more. You can't add all that content by hand and have time to do anything else; you need a content management system. That's where DotNetNuke comes in. This tutorial will teach you how to install it and walk you through the basics of how it works.
This article assumes that you have installed Visual Web Developer 2008 Express and gone through the following three basic ASP.NET tutorials:
Develop Your First ASP.NET Website with Visual Web Developer Express
Building a Static ASP.NET Website in a Basic Hosting Environment
Adding Content to a Static ASP.NET Website
It is expected after reading those tutorials that you know how to basically construct a static website using ASP.NET in Visual Web Developer 2008 Express. However, one of the most important web development skills is using CMS (Content Management system) templates. Doing so offers more usability and flexibility for large scale implementation of dynamic websites.
Microsoft-based CMS templates require ASP.NET to connect to a database like MS SQL Server. It is also true that the majority of ASP.NET websites on the Internet use CMSes. One of most popular open source ASP.NET-based CMS templates is DotNetNuke.
The CMS (community version) has been released in open source; this means any developer can use the CMS for free. However, before you can upload your DotNetNuke website to an ASP.NET host, development should take place on your Windows local host server. This tutorial will discuss the steps required to install ASP.NET DotNetNuke's default template in Visual Web Developer 2008 Express. Instead of installing IIS, which is available only in Windows professional editions, Visual Web Developer 2008 has a built-in web server that can serve dynamic pages, such as ASPX or ASP.
Requirements and Preliminary Steps
You need to have a full installation of Visual Web Developer 2008 Express (you can download it). Also, DotNetNuke installation seems to work with the following system specifications:
- Windows XP SP3 Home Edition
- MS SQL server 2008 (included in the full installation of Visual Web Developer). Refer to the screenshot below for the installed MS SQL Server in the system, as well as those activated under “Services” (Control Panel -> Administrative tools -> Services).
You need to ensure that SQL Server (SQLEXPRESS) will be set to “Automatic” and “Started” under services.
Once you have the items above, you need to download DotNetNuke.
DotNetNuke requires any user of their community edition to register. After registration, you are then presented with a download page. On this page, click “Install package” only. See the screenshot below (inside the blue box):
After clicking on “Install package,” you will see the Terms of Use page. click “I agree” and then save the installer file to your Windows desktop. Note that the DotNetNuke basic installer is in .ZIP format, so you need software to extract it (recommended: Winrar).
When the download is complete, just close it; do not open or install it yet.
Next: Create ASP.NET file system for DotNetNuke files >>
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