Hi!

I installed Plesk 7 Beta2 and took a few screenshots and am writing a tour on it now (sort of :P)

So.. where do we start? Oh yeah... the installer (http://www.evilfactory.net/weed/plesk7windows/1.jpeg)... that's a good place to start, don't you think? =)

The installer is pretty basic... I'll post advantages and disadvantages along the way... oh look Apache was installed! Perhaps a good sign then...?

Advantage: a few more options then 6.5

Disadvantage: Takes much longer then 6.5, many more programs installed...

Hmm... next... Well, let's look at the login screen (http://www.evilfactory.net/weed/plesk7windows/2.jpeg)... Hmm, pretty much the same as Plesk 7 for Linux...

Let's go ahead and login and see what we have to do first (http://www.evilfactory.net/weed/plesk7windows/3.jpeg)... Hmm... looks pretty much the same as 6.5's setup... let's continue on.. Hmm... typical information stuff (http://www.evilfactory.net/weed/plesk7windows/4.jpeg)...

Oh look... the first page that is thrown at me is the server setup (http://www.evilfactory.net/weed/plesk7windows/5.jpeg)... Looks like we gots a few more options today...

Hmm... Looks like some usual stuff in there too... plesk key info (http://www.evilfactory.net/weed/plesk7windows/6.jpeg)... server status (http://www.evilfactory.net/weed/plesk7windows/7.jpeg)...services manager (http://www.evilfactory.net/weed/plesk7windows/8.jpeg)... what's this? Odd... the Services Manager page tells me that Microsoft IIS is running and not Apache... but I thought apache was installed (http://www.evilfactory.net/weed/plesk7windows/9.jpeg)?

Oh well.. I had IIS setup from the beginning so maybe it just decided to use that.... and for whatever reason continue installing Apache... I'll have to look more into that later...

Hmm... notification subscription (http://www.evilfactory.net/weed/plesk7windows/10.jpeg) seems new... correct me if I'm wrong...

Let's see... server preferences (http://www.evilfactory.net/weed/plesk7windows/11.jpeg) looks the same... auto updates (http://www.evilfactory.net/weed/plesk7windows/12.jpeg) now what would I need that for if it does it automatically...? maybe it's a history page or something...

Oh well... let's just go to the client page (http://www.evilfactory.net/weed/plesk7windows/13.jpeg) and set up our client template (http://www.evilfactory.net/weed/plesk7windows/14.jpeg)... nothing new to report here... let's just create our client (http://www.evilfactory.net/weed/plesk7windows/15.jpeg) and check out the client management (http://www.evilfactory.net/weed/plesk7windows/16.jpeg) page... we'll create our domain (http://www.evilfactory.net/weed/plesk7windows/17.jpeg)... and set up the limits and stuff (http://www.evilfactory.net/weed/plesk7windows/18.jpeg)... what? PHP wasn't installed when plesk was installed??? Maybe I overlooked that in the installer..? Well that sucks... oh look, new options on the domain management page (http://www.evilfactory.net/weed/plesk7windows/19.jpeg)... it seems there is an interesting performance (http://www.evilfactory.net/weed/plesk7windows/20.jpeg) page where you can limit server resource usage... that's always good for those pesky websites that are resource hogs...

mail user cp (http://www.evilfactory.net/weed/plesk7windows/21.jpeg)...

whoops! almost missed the trouble ticketing system (http://www.evilfactory.net/weed/plesk7windows/22.jpeg)... here's a shot of the categories (http://www.evilfactory.net/weed/plesk7windows/23.jpeg) page...

Hm... a quick check of some stuff on server 2k3.... this is odd... I never gave somesite.com permission to have system access... so why is there a folder (http://www.evilfactory.net/weed/plesk7windows/24.jpeg) for the site under Documents and Settings? Hm.. A quick check of Plesk 6.5 on my production server shows that it only creates the folder (http://www.evilfactory.net/weed/plesk7windows/25.jpeg) for the websites I give system access to... where plesk 7 does not... perhaps it's a bug?

Well, there you have it :) Everything I could find in Plesk in 10 minutes or less (minus the installation =P)

Overall Advantages: Apache was installed!!!

Disadvantages: Apache was installed!!! and isn't being used... at least not on my box...

Also PHP wasn't installed... that annoys me greatly...

~Garrett

Just a guess - Apache was installed to run the control panel NOT the web sites.

nice =] wish they put some of those for linux

Originally posted by MyAlterEgo
Just a guess - Apache was installed to run the control panel NOT the web sites.

Plesk runs on it's own services, it really shouldn't require apache to execute pages... it never did in the past.

~Garrett

Looks great. What's even better is that some of those features may be ported over to the linux version soon (I guess).

Hmm...It is odd that Apache isn't used. I set it up on my 2003 Enterprise Edition and Apache was used. I didn't have IIS running (your required to have it installed to install Plesk)...

Originally posted by 6dhosting.com
Hmm...It is odd that Apache isn't used. I set it up on my 2003 Enterprise Edition and Apache was used. I didn't have IIS running (your required to have it installed to install Plesk)...

You didn't have IIS running? I don't quite follow...

I'm going to reformat and try installing plesk7 again a little later on when I have some free time to figure that out.

Did php instal for you though?

~Garrett

Looks Good :)

Guys, you can stop waisting your time - Plesk 7 for Windows uses IIS for customers and Apache for the control panel. And even before you ask, no, you can't use Apache for customers web pages, it's IIS only.

Ales is correct. And if you are hosting on Windows you wouldn't want Apache anyways. One of the big reasons to run a Windows Server for Hosting is ASP and ASP.NET support. Apache doesn't offer these very well.

Now, here is some other items of interest.

1. FrontPage issues appear to have been resolved.

2. They removed the mapping system so no more _non_ssl or _ssl situation.

3. include virtual and server.mappath are working properly.

4. The install has issues via Terminal Services on many servers. Hopefully this will be resolved by the next beta or a release candidate.

5. Due to install issues I believe, spamassassin does not operate when Plesk is instaled via Terminal Services.

6. There are only a few features that are not on Plesk 7 for linux. Mime Types and the site preview are the two primary ones. The virtual Directories one is for IIS. The reason for the Mime Types is due to IIS 6.0 not serving any "unkown" file types. It allows customers to upload a .??? create a mime type and have IIS 6 load the file.

7. The throttling system is very nice. :D

Basically they used apache for the CP so that they wouldn't have to rewrite all the configuration files. I dug a little deeper and found that the IIS service *was* running, I just hadn't had the CP for it up. Sorry.

Actually, they use Apache for the CP so it runs seperately from the sites. Smart move when you think about it.

Both Linux and Windows do the same thing, meaning if the httpd or IIS for the websites goes down for any reason you probably still have access to Plesk to restart it, etc..

I'm sorry to say it locked out all my sites because of an error it made, i had to manualy remove their additions to my IIS.
In my opinion, Plesk is by far one of the worst control panels, both for system admins and costumers, iv'e been on both sides.

1. You never install a control panel on an already configured server. That is asking for problems.

2. Other than issues with 6.5.x and the way it operates, which changes in 7 our clients are happy overall. Actually most of them prefer the interface over others.

3. I have seen 6.5.x create problems, but never lock out all the sites.

I don't know how you come to the conclusion that Plesk is the worst control panel, after you tried to install a control panel, and possibly beta control panel, on a live and unclean server. Last I knew Plesk can not be installed on an unclean/already live server. The same goes with most any control panel.

Originally posted by frozen
I don't know how you come to the conclusion that Plesk is the worst control panel, after you tried to install a control panel, and possibly beta control panel, on a live and unclean server. Last I knew Plesk can not be installed on an unclean/already live server. The same goes with most any control panel.

If you install plesk on a clean server, it is easily the easiest (did that make sense? :P) cp to install I've tried so far... InsPanel bundles almost nothing, and you have to configure php/mysql manually... Plesk does all that for you.

~Garrett

I agree. Plesk is indeed our Favorite, for FreeBSD, Linux and Windows. We have tried many, even tried the multiple control panel thing so customers could have a choice, but ended up spending four times we normally would supporting our customers, fixing things, recovering from failed updates, etc that were not on the Plesk servers.

i have to admit that plesk 7 for windows looks pretty slick. Several few months ago i ran 6.5 and while it was a great improvement over ensim (which i was running on my live box), i was not really happy with some of its limitations.

i will be curious to see the final release of plesk 7.


for now though i am thinking of moving onto helm. i have been testing it for about a month now on a serverbeach server and i really like it. i think helm is nice because it was built from the ground up for windows, where most other CPs were built for Linux and then ported to windows.

anyway plesk 7 looks pretty cool. i will be very interested to read more users experiences with it.