The Japan Page

2. Install ActiveState Active Perl. I used version 5.8, you can download the latest from here. Run the installer, be sure to choose the ISAPI and CGI options.
3. Configure IIS from the MMC snapin. Under Web Service Extensions you'll need to allow Perl CGI Extension, it remains disabled by default after the Perl installation.
4. Download MoveableType here. There is a free personal version, but you'll have to register.
5. Install MoveableType per the installation instructions. The instructions are fairly complete, but really intended for the Linux audience. So I'll just detail the missing Windows tips.

Be sure to install with a CGI-BIN directory and a static content directory. CGI-BIN on Windows you say? Yes, name the CGI-BIN whatever you like, in my case it's named /blog/ . This is just the location that the executable .CGI (Perl scripts) are stored. The static directory should hold the /images/ , /docs/ subdirectories and the mt.js and style.css files.

6. Once the installation is finished, go back to the MMC snapin and create a virtual directory out of whatever you named your CGI-BIN folder. Click on Configuration, then confirm there's an entry for .CGI. I had to add one, so just copy the settings for .PL which should have been added by the ActiveState installer.

7. Open up your web browser and type in the URL to the mt-check.cgi file in your CGI-BIN folder, it should look like www.myserver.com/blog/mt-check.cgi. This will run and detect the status of your Perl installation. If it fails to run, you'll need to troubleshoot your Perl and IIS configuration.

You will be missing some Perl modules now, so open a dos window and type ppm and hit enter. This will open up the Perl Package Manager, after which you can get the componenets you need. I had to download html-template and file-db.

Example PPM download commands:
install DB_File

Windows systems will require the Image::Magick Perl plugin. Download the full distro for Windows here, be sure to check the "add ActiveState Perl" option.

8. Once you get the required components all green, you're ready to edit your mt.cfg file. Hint, your DB path should be in the format d:\inetpub\wwwroot\cgi-bin\mydb . Be sure to put the full filesystem path here.

9. Now start the MoveableType initialization. The instructions could have been more detailed on this part.

Now you manually create a DB directory under your CGI-bin directory. Make sure the path was added to the mt.cfg file. Save yourself some future hacker related trouble and use something more creative than just "db".

10. To initialize MT and create the DB my pointing your browser to www.myserver.com/blog/mt-load.cgi . If it fails anywhere the instructions will tell you. (If you get the annoying MovableType is here but doesn't work page you didn't type mt.cgi !)

Be sure to manually delete the mt-load.cgi file.

11. Load the file www.myserver.com/cgi-bin/mt.cgi and log in with the default password. Once logged in, change the password, then configure your site options and generate the content.

HINT: You'll probably need to change the content path here.

HINT: You'll need to add "index.html" to the documents section of the IIS MMC snapin, it's not one of the defaults.

12. If you get any errors while rebuilding your site, that's usually write perms on the file system. I'm still experimenting with the best set of perms, but IUSR_machine-name will need write.

13. Have fun.

This content is offered as is with no guarantee of fitness, etc etc. If you totally screw up your MovableType install, delete it and start over. It took me 2 tries to get it going. :-)

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