Frontpage error – The version (unknown) of the server extensions you are trying to uninstall cannot be uninstalled with this tool. You must upgrade this virtual server to the current version, and then use owsadm.exe to uninstall

Posted on April 7, 2008
Filed Under cPanel Web Hosting, Frontpage, Web Hosting | Leave a Comment

Frontpage© to be really honest is the bane of web hosts. The idea is great, but it was ill-conceived where web hosting is concerned. Woes are so common its not fair to the end user or the web host, but answers to resolve those woes are equally common but remarkable poorly covered on the Internet so here are a few tips to resolving those woes without waiting for your web host to say ‘Sorry we may offer third party scripting and services but we cannot support them’ …

1. Number one rule of all things, Frontpage Extensions have a terrible habit of screwing up folder permissions, form the web root down to sub folders. Assuming that you are in the usual Apache/Linux web hosting environment, then you will have a web root folder called public_html and a symlinked folder called www (that folder doesn’t actually exist, its a ‘ghost’ of [sym link to] the public_html folder there to satisfy the age old www concept [put in the politest and simplest terms]).

So first, let’s look at the permissions for the public_html folder (forget the www folder for the moment) and make sure that it has 0755 set for its permissions and all sub folders therein – every folder (not file) should have 755 permissions set in and including the public_html folder or whatever your web root folder is called). In some cases, changing permissions on the www folder to 755 can have a better affect, so if changing the permissions on the public_html folder does not work then try that instead. NOTE: In some cases you may need to have folders with 777 permissions (this is a bad thing but sometimes necessary, if your server has SuExec or mod_suphp installed you will also need to change those to 755 permissions).

2. The biggest mistake is to think that when moving or restoring a site complete with the ‘special’ Frontpage folders will work fine, but it WILL NOT! The folders that are created when Frontpage is installed include …

_private
_vti_bin
_vti_cnf
_vti_log
_vti_pvt
_vti_txt

If you have copied or restored those then delete them now and then ‘clean up old frontpage extensions’ and reinstall front page extensions, otherwise you will see the following error message each and every time you try to uninstall them …

The version (unknown) of the server extensions you are trying to uninstall cannot be uninstall with this tool. You must upgrade this virtual server to the current version, and then use owsadm.exe to uninstall

… and the following error message each time you try to install them …

An access setup description is required when creating the root web

3. If these two options did not work then delete each and every .htaccess file in the web root and sub folders of the site having the problems (note any contents in case you have any settings of your own in the .htaccess files, such as redirects and mod-rewrite rules, add them back after you have successfully installed frontpage extensions). Remember also that if you delete any .htaccess files in any addon domain folders, you will have to reinstall frontpage extensions for that addon domain if used therein.

The solutions are fairly simple, its a shame that they are so poorly documented on the Internet but that’s purely born from the concept that ‘Microsoft wrote this stuff, they should provide the answer’. Hey, pee off the OS user en masse, what do you expect, a fan club?

 

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