UK Windows Hosting FAQ

[fwh-Robert]

What server hardware is used for Windows hosting?

Our servers are Dell PowerEdge R200 1U rack-mounted servers consisting of (minimum):

• 2.2GHz Intel Core2 Duo E4500 (Dual Core)
• 3.00GB DDR2 Memory
• 160GB SATA Hard Drive

Where are your servers located?

All servers from Freewind Hosting are hosted in Maidenhead, UK. Our UK datacentre is located 30 miles west of London; for more information, please review our UK datacentre page.

What version of Windows Server is installed?

Our Windows hosting servers run Windows Server 2008 Web Edition with Service Pack 2.

What version of IIS is available?

Our Windows hosting provides the very latest offering of Microsoft Internet Information Service 7.0 (IIS 7).

What version of ASP.NET is available?

With support for ASP.NET 1.1, 2.0, 3.0, 3.5 and 3.5 SP1 our Windows hosting packages offer developers the very latest in Microsoft programming technologies.

Is PHP supported?

Yes! PHP 4 and 5 is supported. You can configure which version of PHP you wish to use through the Parallels Plesk control panel.

Is MySQL available?

Yes! MySQL 5 is available on our Windows hosting packages. PHPMyAdmin is also available - allowing you to administer your MySQL database through the easy to use web interface.

Is Microsoft SQL Server available?

Yes! Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Express is available on our Windows hosting packages. ASP.NET enterprise manager is also available - allowing you to administer your Microsoft SQL Server database through the easy to use web interface.

Does Windows hosting support ASP.NET MVC?

Yes! Our Windows hosting packages are served by Internet Information Service 7, which has built-in support for ASP.NET MVC websites. For more information about MVC, please visit the ASP.NET MVC website.

Does Windows hosting support Silverlight?

Yes! Our Windows hosting packages allow developers to leverage Silverlight technology on their websites. For more information on Silverlight, please visit the Microsoft Silverlight website

Does Windows hosting provide SEO support?

Yes! We have tools to help you with your SEO, including Helicon ISAPI Rewrite 3 allowing you to 're-write' your website URL's so they are SEO friendly.

I want to sign up for your Windows hosting, where do I go?

For more information about the features of our Windows hosting packages and to sign up, please visit the following link:

UK Windows Hosting

[fwh-Robert]

Customers who have a website that utilises a Microsoft SQL Server Express Database (usually found in the App_Data folder as .LDF and .MDF files) folder will find that under their windows hosting account the database fails to attach to the SQL Server instance running on their hosting account.

In short, on a production web server (that hosts your website) there are more stringent security controls in place than on your local machine. These security mechanisms prevent the two files in your App_Data folder (which form a database) from attaching to the SQL Server instance running on the web server.

For more information on this issue, please refer to the thread Windows Hosting Troubleshooting Guide.

Getting your SQL Express Database working

To get your database to work on our Windows hosting environment you will need to provide us with a backup file of your database, so this can be restored to a database created in your Plesk control panel.

The guide below will take you through the process of attaching your local database to your local SQL Express instance, and creating a backup of the database as a .BAK file.

Attaching a database and creating a backup in Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio.