FP98: Personal Web Server Cannot Bind to Port 80

When you start the FrontPage Personal Web Server by clicking the icon on the Windows 95 Start menu or by double-clicking the icon in the Windows NT FrontPage program group, you receive the following error message:

In most cases, this error message is displayed because there is already another Web server installed to or operating on port 80.

To work around this problem, follow these steps:

1. Stop the Web server currently running on Port 80
2. Uninstall the extensions on the FP-PWS at port 80 using fpsrvwin.exe
3. In a text editor such as Notepad, open the Httpd.cnf configuration file located in the FrontPage Webs\Server\Conf folder.
4. Find the line that reads port 80.
5. Change it to read:
   port 8080
   NOTE: You can specify any number greater than 1024.
6. Save and close the Httpd.cnf file.
7. Start the FrontPage Server Administrator.
8. Click Uninstall to remove the FrontPage Personal Web Server extensions.
9. Click OK.
10. Click Install to reinstall the FrontPage Personal Web Server Extensions. In the Server Type drop-down list, select FrontPage Personal Web Server, and then click Browse to locate the Httpd.cnf file (which is typically located in the FrontPage Webs\Server\conf folder). Click OK or Open.
11. Click OK.
12. In the Administrator Setup dialog box, type a name and password and then click OK.

This procedure will automatically bind the FrontPage Personal Web Server to the port number you specified in step 3.

Once this is done, specify the port number in addition to the server name when you select a Web server in the FrontPage Explorer or when you browse a page on the server. For example, if your server name is Dalmatian and you are using port number 8080, then you would specify the following Web server:

Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in the Microsoft products listed at the beginning of this article.