Complete newbies/dummies thread, or What should you know before installing miniBB

Hi and greetings.
I've downloaded MiniBB just the other day.
After unzipping, I find there's no COM or EXE file that I could run.
My scenario:
I just signed up with a web host and they use MySQL, PHP, Apache and Unix.

So I make a webpage and then upload them. Fine.
Now, I thought of using MiniBB as a guest book and private messaging. I figured on setting up everything on my home PC first then upload them afterwards.
But now after unzipping, I find there's no COM or EXE. Like, I couldn't even install it.

I'm using WindowsME.
Can anyone enlighten me?

thanks and hope to get a reply.

Well I downloaded and installed the ff:
PHP installer.exe ver 4.3.1 binaries for Windows98/ME/XP/NT (1MB size)
MySQL zip file ver 3.23.55 for Windows98/ME/XP/NT (13.6MB size)

Can't find "magic_qoutes_runtime" so I can set it to OFF as stated by MiniBB requirements.

Ah..., now what do I do?
Do I still need the other PHP 4.3.1 (tar.bz2) Complete Source Code file? (3.5MB size)

glc
I have no comments :) Before giving such questions, you need to learn what open source is, what PHP is, what HTML is, what database is. You need to learn how to setup and run server, database on your computer. At last, you need to understand what forums software means and why do you need it - then I can answer you more, sorry.

...Why do I get a feeling that it's more difficult than it seems?

Let me see, for MiniBB to work on my own PC running WinME(for testing):
1) I first need to have all the required software.
2) I'll have to configure them to work together.

I'll be back.
BTW, do I need Apache?

Of course, you do.

isn't windows ME a bit like human ME (i.e: a debilitating disease) :)

if you've got php and mysql running on your machine already, apache's the only other thing you need (check the respective sites for setup guides).

you don't really need to run minibb on your own machine for development though - just put minibb in a 'dev' folder on your server and edit setup_options to make all the table names start with something like 'dev' rather than 'minibb'.

as Team has said, if you're not sure what you need to do to get minibb running, then maybe you shouldn't be looking at forum software just yet. concentrate on getting the rest of your site up and understand how it works before adding a forum.

One question:
Can MiniBB be configured solely thru it's "admin" control panel so that when clicked as a link, it acts like a guest book with private messaging only to the webmaster (me)?

(and without all the other features or other features disabled)

I just installed on a Windows 2000 box running Apache 2 (I know only 1.3 is recommended, but I don't want to go backward on my server). I can't log in as admin. I saw a solution dealing with cookies and headers, but don't understand the fix. Can you explain where I should replace the setCookie code?

Hmm.. Do you get any kind of error messages? try typing
error_reporting(0);

at the beginning of your setup_options.php file and see if it helps.


regards,

Anonymous
You know - only 1.3 is recommended, so what's the deal? What do you want - that 2.0 will magically work only for you? IT DOESN'T WORK CORRECTLY WITH PHP HEADERS YET, and there is no solution!

That's odd.. I've gotten it to run using miniBB 1.5, and PHP 4.3.1 (installed as a module not CGI) and apache 2.0.44. I just followed the install instructions and didn't have to change much.

My one question is:
Is there a way to change the mail server that it uses? I don't normally run one on 'localhost' that miniBB is using.

miniBB is nothing to common with mail server. You need to configure mail server with your web server, actually (for example, you can use PostCast).