Learn about installing ColdFusion in this Adobe Dreamweaver CS3 Advanced training video series.


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Video Transcription

In this lesson, I am going to walk you through the installation process for ColdFusion 8, because there are a few options that I recommend you use during this training that are not part of the default installation options in ColdFusion. If you have already installed ColdFusion on your computer and its working the way you want, you can skip ahead to the MySQL lesson later in this chapter. If you are having trouble with ColdFusion and you have already installed it, you may want to uninstall it, then follow these steps to reinstall it, to make sure you have setup all of the features you need, especially the Development Server. I am going to assume that you have already downloaded the ColdFusion Installer and that you have the installation EXE, if you are on Windows, or the Mac version, if you are on a Mac, and you are ready to install the program. The Installer works like most programs, simply double click to launch the Installer. Many of the elements of the installation process are pretty intuitive. Obviously, choose the language that you want. Accept the License Agreement. Here is the first place I will give you a tip. If you want the full Enterprise Edition, then you can choose the 30 day trial and test it out for free and consider purchasing it in the future. If you are just following along and you want to develop a site locally on your hard drive, the Developer Edition will work just fine for this series. For Server configuration, install Adobe ColdFusion 8 as a self-contained server. Again, unless you know that you want one of these more advanced options, that will work well for this series. The Subcomponents are optional; I suggest you install all of them at the stage, that will give you a chance to explore all of the feature sets, but if you want to limit them, you can select only the ones you choose. Here is a tip. For all of you PC users, don't try to install ColdFusion in your Program Files folder. I know that's probably where you put most software, but ColdFusion doesn't allow spaces in folder names. So program space files is a bad folder for ColdFusion, which is why by default ColdFusion installs at the C: prompt when you are on a PC. So I strongly suggest that you keep it at the C: prompt if you are on a PC. If you are on a Mac, you won't have any trouble. You can install ColdFusion in the Applications folder, with all your other software, because that's a folder with no space in the file name. If you are using this on a single computer, you don't need Serial Number, and you can just skip ahead by choosing Next. Again, accept the terms of the License Agreement, and legal disclosure; you should always read legal agreements before you accept them. I have already read it and I have decided it's okay with me, but you must make that decision for yourself. Here is another screen where I want to give you a suggestion. This is where you want to make sure if you are working locally and you are following along with me, that you want to use the Built-in web server for Development use. Again, if you are working on an enterprise system, if you are at university or a big corporation, you might want to check with your system administrator about the installation options here, but if you are just following along with me and you are going to want to publish this site to a commercial web hosting service when you are done, then the Built-in web server is perfect. Now, this is also very important, you get to create your own password here, but you better remember this, because you are going to need it later. To keep things simple, I am using the word password as my password, but I should point out that that's not ideal for security and I hope you will create a password that's a little harder to guess and a little better for security. Using punctuation or mixed case is always a good trick for making you passwords more secure. You are also prompted here for a RDS password. Remote Development Service is optional, but if you want to use the Dreamweaver extensions, which we will be using in this series, you will need to enable RDS. You can use the same password or a different password as the one you entered before. Again, to keep it simple in this series, I am going to use the same one and I am going to use the word password. Whatever you choose, just keep track of it or make sure its something you can remember because you will need it again later. Finally, you can do a quick review, make sure everything is the way you want it, and then Install. Thanks to the wonders of video editing we have sped up that installation process, so although that only took a few seconds on your screen here, of course, when you actually go to install this software on your computer, it will take a little longer for the installation process. Once you have finished the installation process, go ahead and launch the Configuration Wizard in your default browser, and you can make sure that installation was completed correctly. This should open in whatever browser you have set to default and ask you for the password you created. This is the first password that you entered, not the RDS password. The first time you login, ColdFusion will need to configure the server, and that can take a few minutes as well. So if you have got coffee while you are installing, this might be a good place to go get donuts or a muffin or something like that, or if you are really on a health kick, jumping jacks. Once setup is complete, you can click OK, and you should be brought in to the Adobe ColdFusion Administrator. Let me expand the browser here. You are using a browser to interact with the ColdFusion Administrator, but don't be fooled, this is a very important interface to the program. Notice here that you already are connected to four databases; these come with ColdFusion, and they are here for you to follow along with the lessons and the tutorials that come with the program. In the next chapter in this series, we will actually establish a connection to the data source that we will be using for our website. You don't need to do that yet, but I wanted you to see this is where you will set up that data source.