Some time back, someone on the Blind Programming list wanted to know if CGI
could be run with Personal Web Server on Windows systems. Apparently, this
can happen. I have successfully run it under Windows 2000. I have not
tested this under Windows 9x. To make this work, you need to get the
version of Perl made by Activestate at http://www.activestate.com. This
excerpt was taken from the documentation found at:
http://aspn.activestate.com//ASPN/Reference/Products/ActivePerl/faq/Windows/ActivePerl-Winfaq4.html

How do I configure IIS 3.0 or lower to support ActivePerl? By default, the
ActivePerl installation maps the .plx extension to Perl for ISAPI. You can
override the extension used during installation. Because the installation
does this only when IIS is already installed, you must install IIS first,
then install ActivePerl. If you need to reconfigure these settings, or if
you must set these by hand, the instructions in this section will prove
useful. Microsoft Internet Information Server (IIS) ships with Windows NT
Server. Peer Web Services (PWS) ships with Windows NT Workstation.
Configuring the products is essentially the same. First, you should consult
Chapter 8, Publishing Information and Applications, in the IIS
documentation. You need to follow these steps to get ActivePerl scripts to
run under IIS: Associate the extension for your scripts with the
appropriate interpreter in the script map for IIS. This is under the
Registry key HKEY_LOCAL_SYSTEM, with the sub-key
``System\CurrentControlSet\Services\W3SVC\Parameters\Script Map''. Many
people map two extensions: one to perl.exe %s (for example, .pl) and
another to PerlIS.dll (for example, .plx). Note that mapping an extension
in the script map is not the same as associating the extension in Explorer.
Use the full paths to the executable files in the script map. Put your
scripts in a virtual directory on the server that has Execute access but
not Read access. You can add virtual directories or view their access with
the Internet Service Manager. Remember that the URLs for your virtual
directories can't overlap with URLs to directories in the WWW root
directory. For example, You can't have a cgi-bin virtual directory and a
real cgi-bin subdirectory of the WWW root. Ensure that your scripts are
readable by the account used by the IIS server. You set this account in
Internet Service Manager; it is set to IUSR_[your server name] by default.
See also What is a Windows NT service? and How do I set permissions on a
file?. Ensure that all supporting files, like the perl binary files, the
perl library files, and the modules that you use, are all readable by the
account used by the IIS server. See also What is a Windows NT service? and
How do I set permissions on a file?. You need to restart the web service
after making the Registry changes or installing Perl. Because IIS runs as a
service (see What is a Windows NT service?), you need to take special steps
to make sure that files and environment variables are available to it. How
do I configure Microsoft IIS 4.0/IIS 5.0 to support ActivePerl? Microsoft
IIS 4.0 ships with Windows NT Server 5.0, and PWS 4.0 ships with Windows NT
Workstation 5.0. Both IIS and PWS are available as part of the Microsoft
Windows NT 4.0 Option Pack. You can find a link to the Option Pack at
http://www.microsoft.com/iis/ Microsoft IIS 5.0 is not automatically
installed on all Windows 2000 systems. Check your Windows 2000
documentation on how to install IIS 5.0. To configure IIS or PWS 4.0 to run
Perl scripts: Open the Internet Service Manager. This will bring up the
Microsoft Management Console with the Internet Service Manager snap-in
already selected. From the tree display on the left, select the level at
which to apply the mappings. You can choose an entire server, web site, or
a given virtual directory. Select Properties from the Action menu. If you
chose to administer the properties for the entire server, the Server
Properties dialog will appear. Select WWW Service from the Master
Properties pull-down menu and click the Edit button under Master
Properties. This opens WWW Service Master Properties. Select the Home
Directory tab and proceed to step 7. If you chose to administer the
properties for an entire web site, the Web Site Properties sheet appears.
Select the Home Directory tab and proceed to step 7. If you chose to
administer the properties for a virtual directory, the Virtual Directory
Properties sheet appears. Select the Virtual Directory tab and proceed to
step 7. Click the Configuration button. This opens the Application
Configuration dialog. Select the App Mappings tab and click the Add button.
You see the Add/Edit Application Extension Mapping dialog. To run Perl as a
CGI application, type the full path to Perl.exe followed by %s %s. When a
script is executed, the first %s will be replaced by the full path to the
script, and the second %s will be replaced by the script parameters. To run
Perl for ISAPI, type the full path to PerlIS.dll. The %s %s is not required
for ISAPI DLLs. In the Extension field, type .pl or .plx (or whatever
extension you want to use). The application mapping is now complete. Click
the OK button and click OK to dismiss any remaining dialogs/property
sheets. Close the IIS Internet Service Manager. Because IIS runs as a
service (see What is a Windows NT service?), you need to take special steps
to make sure that files and environment variables are available to it. What
is a Windows NT/2000 service? On Windows NT/2000, a service is a special
kind of executable program that runs in the background. Services are used
for programs that are constantly working, such as network protocols or
database servers. Most WWW servers on Windows NT/2000 are implemented as
services. A service is different from other programs in several ways:
Services aren't run interactively, although the NET START and NET STOP
commands can be used to start or stop a server. The Services control panel
is used to start, stop, or pause a service. Services don't act with the
authority of the logged-in user. That means that services can't see user
environment variables or read files that are readable only by the logged-in
user. You can set the account that a service uses in the Services control
panel. Services run even when no one is logged in to the machine. The most
important thing to remember is that you have to take special steps to make
resources available to services. In general, you need to make files
available to the Everyone group, and you have to have environment variables
(like PATH) be system environment variables.


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