Plesk 8.2 for Windows Release Notes

Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Installation Instructions
    1. Before Installation
    2. Software Requirements
    3. Installation Steps
    4. Completing Installation
  3. Upgrade Instructions
  4. Supplied Components
  5. What's New
    1. Plesk 8.2.0 build 070705.17
      1. API RPC
  6. Supported 3rd party components
  7. Known Problems and Limitations
  8. Contact Information

1. Introduction

Thank you for downloading this release of Plesk 8.2 for Windows. This file contains information that supplements the Plesk 8.2 for Windows documentation such as requirements, information on new features, corrected bugs, known problems etc. This file was updated with the latest information available at release time.

2. Installation Instructions

We strongly recommend that you refer to the product installation instructions and the product user manual prior to upgrading/installing and operating Plesk. Refer to the SWsoft, Inc. web site at http://www.swsoft.com for more information.

Plesk 8.2 for Windows documentation: http://www.swsoft.com/en/products/plesk8win/docs/

Plesk 8.2 for Windows FAQ:http://kb.swsoft.com/category7.php

2.1. Before Installation

Before starting the installation process we strongly recommend that you create a full system backup of the entire server.

Internet Information Services (IIS) should be preinstalled with World Wide Web (WWW) Service support.

2.2. Software Requirements

Plesk 8.2 for Windows requires Microsoft Windows 2003 Server installed on your computer with configured IP address. The IP address received via DHCP will be converted into static when you change IP pool.

Plesk 8.2 for Windows can be installed only on NTFS partition.

IMPORTANT: If you plan to install Plesk 8.2 for Windows on Microsoft Windows 2003 Server x64, you should preinstall Microsoft .NET Framework 1.1.

In order for your server to support ASP.NET, FrontPage 2002 Server Extensions, File Transfer Protocol (FTP) Service, Server Side Includes (SSI) and Active Server Pages (ASP) you need to select corresponding components during the initial IIS installation.

In order for your server to support ASP.NET 2.0, you need to install .NET Framework 2.0 manually. Note that .NET Framework 2.0 is required to install and run SiteBuilder 4.0 for Windows, which is included in Plesk 8.2 for Windows distribution.

In order for your server to support domain performance configuring, you need to enable QoS Packet Scheduler service.

If you plan to use MS SQL Server support in Plesk 8.2 for Windows, the MS SQL Server should be installed and configured to use standard or mixed security mode. If MS SQL Server is not installed, you can select Microsoft Database Engine to be installed with Plesk 8.2 for Windows and configured with administrator name 'sa' and random password.

IMPORTANT: We strongly recommend that you install Plesk 8.2 for Windows on a clean server; specifically, only above-mentioned operating system components should be installed.

2.3. Installation Steps

  1. Log in as "Administrator" or another user with Administrator's privileges.
  2. Change your working directory to the directory where the Plesk 8.2 for Windows distribution resides.
  3. Run the installer.
  4. Follow the on-screen instructions.
  5. In some cases when the installation is finished, reboot confirmation will be requested.
  6. After the reboot Plesk will be started automatically.

2.4. Completing Installation

In order to finish the initial configuration of Plesk, you need to login to Plesk 8.2 for Windows on your host at https://domain.name:8443/ or https://IP-address:8443/

The default username is "admin" and the default password is "setup". Both are case sensitive. For security reasons the password has to be changed upon initial login.

3. Upgrade Instructions

If you have Plesk version earlier than 7.5.x installed on your machine, you need to upgrade it to Plesk 7.5.6+ first, migrating all data, and then run the Plesk 8.2 installer.

If your machine has Plesk 7.5.x, 7.6.x or 8.1.x installed, you will be prompted to upgrade existing Plesk installation to 8.2 after running the installer.

Plesk 8.2 for Windows includes SiteBuilder 4.0 in the distribution, but it won't ugrade your sitebuilder installation automatically. If you wish to upgrade your Sitebuilder installation, you are to add the following key to command line of MSI or EXE installer: WSB_UPGRADE=force

If you have used SiteBuilder 2.0.5 with earlier versions of Plesk, you can migrate web sites created in SiteBuilder 2.0.5 to SiteBuilder 4.0 after you upgrade Plesk for Windows to version 8.2.

To successfully migrate web sites created in SiteBuilder 2.0.5 to SiteBuilder 4.0:

  1. Install SiteBuilder 4.0:
  2. Run sitebuilder.exe utility located in the folder where Plesk is installed with the following parameters:

ATTENTION: If you upgrade from Plesk 7.6.1 for Windows to Plesk 8.2 for Windows and you want to use Sitebuilder 4.0, then you need to run a special utility available in Plesk 8.2 distribution to ensure that all web sites created in SiteBuilder 3.1 (which was delivivered with Plesk 7.6.1) will work with Plesk 8.2 after the update. This utility is located in %plesk_bin% folder, and it is called sitebuilder.exe. To perform a successful update, run sitebuilder.exe with --update761 parameter, for example: C:\Program Files\SWsoft\Plesk\admin\bin\sitebuilder.exe --update761.
We strongly recommend that you contact SWsoft support team in order to quickly and efficiently transfer your web sites upon the update.

4. Supplied Components

Plesk 8.2 for Windows distrubution package ships the following components:

5. What's New

5.1. Plesk 8.2.0 build 070705.17

  1. [+] DB Table Prefix - An option to create all databases with name prefixed by client login name.

  2. [+] Miva Merchant support - MIVA Merchant is a storefront development and management system. It integrates catalog, product, fulfillment, maintenance, category management, shopping cart, order processing, and credit card processing in association with many of the MIVA payment providers, including Authorize.net, VeriSign.com, and several others.

  3. [+] ColdFusion DSN support - Coldfusion DSN is a way to register databases created by Plesk in Coldfusion engine so that a Coldfusion application can access dbs using standard Coldfusion mecanism.

  4. [+] CommuniGate Pro support - An option to use Communigate Pro software as Plesk mail server.

  5. [+] SiteBuilder 4 support - Plesk distribution includes SiteBuilder 4 software and is fully compatible with it.

  6. [+] Autoupdater mirror - Plesk can take updates from customer controlled mirror with choosen subset of updates available.

  7. [+] DotNetNuke 4.5 support - DotNetNuke 4.5.is available among Site Applications (APS)

  8. [+] Forced web statistics recalculation - statistics.exe tool includes an option recalculate web statistics for choosen domains and time period on demand.

  9. [*] Unlimited default values for limit of maximum FTP and FrontPage subaccounts - Number of maximum available FTP and FrontPage subaccounts is unlimited now unless other values are specified explicitly.

  10. [+] Component updates - Plesk 8.2 for Windows includes the following components updated:

  11. [+] Application Pack - There is a single pack of all available site applications which can be installed separately of Plesk.

  12. [+] Combined site applications - AppVault, ASP.NET Starter Kits and Java Apps - Easier management of APS (Application Vault), ASP.NET Starter Kits and Java Apps - everything from one point.

  13. [*] Improved Backups - a number of improvements in backup and restore processes:

  14. [*] Security fixes

  15. [+] Turning domains and clients on andoff via Group Operations - Clients and Domains can be turned on and off from "Global changes" menu

  16. [+] MyLittleAdmin support - MyLittleAdmin is a web-based database administration tool for SQL Server 2005. With its help end-users are able to manage their MS SQL databases just like they manage MySQL databases with help of phpMySQL

  17. [*] ll-CC locales naming - Plesk 8.2 for Windows now uses ll-CC format for locales naming, e.g. en-US, de-DE, ...

  18. [+] New site application format (APS) - The new site applications format is open and can be used by individual software developers, ISV and HSP for packaging their own applications. It makes Plesk a platform on SaaS market. Previous aplications format is supported as well.

  19. [+] Virtuozzo 4 support - Latest Plesk 8.2.0 for Windows VZ templates (Plesk and Plesk PowerPack) are fully compatible with the newest SWsoft Virtuozzo 4.0 for Windows Beta.

API RPC

  1. [+] API for backups - API includes new methods for managing backups and backup settings.

  2. [+] Protocol versions in client-level API - Being used under client-level account, API is able to inform which protocol versions are available.

  3. [+] "Component upgraded" event - API gets an event generated when Plesk or its componets are installed or upgraded.

Legend:

[+] new feature

[-] bug fixed or removed

[*] bug fixed and improvement made


Supported 3rd party components

Mail servers

  1. MailEnable Standard 1.981
  2. MailEnable Professional 2.37
  3. MailEnable Enterprise 2.37
  4. Merak 8.9.1
  5. SmarterMail 4.2
  6. MDaemon 9.6
  7. hMailServer 4.4
  8. CommuniGate Pro 5.1

Antiviruses:

  1. DrWeb 4.33.1.3290
  2. Kaspersky AV 5.0.0.49
  3. ClamWin 0.90.2.1
  4. Merak Antivirus

DNS servers:

  1. Microsoft DNS 5.2.
  2. BIND DNS Server 9.4.1
  3. Simple DNS Plus 4.00.07

FTP servers:

  1. Microsoft FTP 6.0
  2. Gene6 FTP Server 3.9
  3. Serv-U FTP Server 6.4

Web Statistics:

  1. Webalizer V2.01-10-RB02
  2. AWStats 6.6
  3. SmarterStats 3.3
  4. Urchin 5.7

Web Scripting:

  1. ASP 6.0.3790.0
  2. ASP.NET 1.1.4322.0
  3. ASP.NET 2.0.50727.0
  4. Miva Empresa 5.0.6
  5. Perl 5.8.8
  6. PHP 4.4.7
  7. PHP 5.2.3
  8. Python 2.5.0.0
  9. SSI 6.0.3790.0
  10. Apache Tomcat 5.5.4
  11. ColdFusion 5.0
  12. ColdFusion MX 6.1
  13. ColdFusion MX 7.0
  14. Microsoft FrontPage 5.0.2.5012

Web Administration Tools:

  1. phpMyAdmin 2.10.1
  2. ASP.NET Enterprise Manager 0.1.3
  3. myLittleAdmin 2000 2.7.r124, 2005 3.1e

Database servers:

  1. Microsoft SQL Server 2000
  2. Microsoft SQL Server 2005
  3. MySQL 5.0.37

Web Mail Solutions:

  1. Horde IMP H3 (4.1.4)
  2. MailEnable Web Client
  3. IceWarp Web Mail
  4. SmarterMail Web Client
  5. CommuniGate Pro Web Client

Spam Filter:

  1. SpamAssassin 3.1.8

Other:

  1. stunnel 4.07

6. Known Problems and Limitations

  1. Plesk 8.2 for Windows cannot be installed if installation path contains non-ASCII symbols.
  2. Plesk Firewall works only if Microsoft Windows 2003 Service Pack 1 (or higher) is installed.
  3. If you wish to patch Plesk over the network, you should have write permission for the Plesk distributives (which are unpacked during Plesk installation). This note does not apply to the web installer.
  4. SmarterStats user is created with the credentials of corresponding domain FTP user. It should be noted though that StarterStats user password will contain only alphanumeric characters and '_' symbol used in place of all non-alphanumeric characters.
  5. If an external SiteBuilder instance (i.e., SiteBuilder installed in SVE or VPS environment or on remote server) is integrated with your Plesk server, your customers will not be able to access SiteBuilder through Plesk if they use Internet Explorer with default security settings. To resolve this issue, make sure that both Plesk and SiteBuilder are located in one subnet (e.g., 110.57.106.1 and 110.57.106.2). Alternatively, you can tell your customers to go through the following procedure:
    1. Open Internet Explorer and go to Tools > Internet Options > Privacy > Sites.
    2. Enter the address of external SiteBuilder instance in the Address of Web Site field and click Allow.
  6. Plesk does not detect 3rd party component automatically. Thus after new 3rd party component is installed, you have to go to Plesk > Componants Management and click Refresh.
  7. Button "Web Applications" is at "Hosting" section now and the button is not available if physical hosting is not enabled.
  8. If you run both Plesk and Sitebuilder in one Virtuozzo VPS, then make sure that you have memory limit at least 700 Mb one the VPS.

7. Contact Information

SWsoft Headquarters
13755 Sunrise Valley Drive Suite 600
Herndon, VA 20171 USA
Phone: +1.703.815.5670, Fax: +1.703.815.5675

Web: http://www.swsoft.com

E-mail:
For billing information, email accounting@swsoft.com
For purchasing or partnering information, email sales@swsoft.com
For technical support, use our Online Support Form.
To report problems with Plesk software, email bugreport@swsoft.com
For information on career opportunities with SWsoft, email careers@swsoft.com
For press contact information, email press@swsoft.com
For information about becoming a Partner, email partners@swsoft.com
For information on translating Plesk into your language, email i18n@swsoft.com
For general product information, email info@swsoft.com

©Copyright 1999-2007, SWsoft Holdings, Ltd..

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Patents pending in the U.S.