hello i have been wanting to host a website but dont want to use thoes free web hosters and get spamed by ads i have found out that win2k3 can host web pages but how do i do that can i have a detailed guide for dummies please. also does this provide a free domain name in this format? www.mywebsitename.com doesn't matter about the .com could be .net or ca or something. remember IIS 6.0 for dummies

Hi there, The real question will not be setting up IIS (which is pretty straight forward) but how you are going to set up your connection to do this. How do you connect to the internet? Do you have a fixed or a static IP? Is the upstream connection really fast enough to do this? Does your ISP let you do this. If you have a fixed IP address, you can register your address with any number of agents who will do this for you. Search on the internet - it may be very cheap but it will probably not be free. Setting up IIS involves: Do Add Remove Programs, Windows Components and make sure that IIS is ticked. If it is not, you will need the windows disc. Installing IIS will give you a default internet share. Put your website in here and that's it. You will then have to: Configure firewalls and routers to allow traffic through Get yourself a domain name If you do not have a fixed IP, there are services available to give you a name that redirects to your server. I haven't looked for ages but I think there is one called DynIP - google Dynamic IP domain name. Hope this helps

are domain names free?? and if not how much are they around

Domain names are NOT free, but you can purchase the rights to one for very little money if you don't add a ton of features. Several companies out there will sell you one. 1&1 is a good company that offers tons of other features. But google domain registration to find a company you want to use. They can be as little as $2 per year or up to $50 per year. Depending on what company you use and what other services you buy and how many years you want to purchase up front.