Windows Web Hosting has been around for several years now and has evolved from simple HTML pages hosting small simple sites with a few images into full blown web based hosted applications where end users can visit a site, interact with the web site owner and even purchase goods and services all over the internet.

Web hosting platforms vary from different types of operating systems. Microsoft Windows Server and Redhat Linux are just two examples and probably the most well known web hosting platforms. So, what is Windows web hosting and what are the advantages and disadvantages to hosting your web site on a Windows Server. Well, that's just the answer isn't it ? Windows Web hosting utilizes the Microsoft Windows Server operating system to host websites containing simple HTML pages and even applications written in ASP or ASP.NET. Windows uses a built-in application or "service" called Internet Information Services (abbreviated as IIS). IIS is the "Service" or "application" that runs on a windows server that is responsible for serving or rendering your HTML pages to a browser. Whenever you visit a site, say www.3essentials.com and you view the content, your web browser is "downloading" or "Viewing" the pages that are stored on our Windows Server, via IIS.

Why use Windows and not Linux, or Unix ? This usually comes down to a couple of "proprietary" requirements you may have when searching for a web hosting provider. If you need to use ASP or ASP.NET, then these scripting languages are only available on Windows. If you have never designed a web page before then most likely either Windows or Linux will work fine for your needs. ASP, ASP.NET (with the newer version of ASP.NET 2.0), and Ajax are all designed to run on Windows with IIS. Windows can run PHP very easily as well.

With Windows Web Hosting from 3Essentials, you have many different options in getting your HTML pages that you design uploaded to your web hosting account. You can use File Transfer Protocal (FTP), there are many Free FTP programs available and some that you can buy at very reasonable prices. If you use FrontPage or Macromedia DreamWeaver you can upload your pages directly from the application.

Sending and receiving email is done easily on a Windows hosting account. Once your mailbox has been created you can use a WebMail interface to send and receive email from a web browser or you can use Outlook and Outloox Express email clients.

Self Management of your website with 3Essentials hosting is made very easy with our Implementation of the Award Winning Control Panel software by Sw-Soft called Plesk. Plesk is a web based interface to your Windows web hosting account that allows you to create e-mail addresses and mailboxes, view your web site traffic statistics, set permissions on your HTML, ASP, and ASP.NET pages... and more.

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