Disabling Frontpage extensions!?

[Briar Spirit]

Hiya folks,

sorry to be a nuisance, could I please ask for some advice on some thing I am a little concerned about.

I just tried to password protect some directories on my account to secure my forum a little more and got this weird warning:

Warning!:

Due to Frontpage Extensions currently being installed and enabled, password protected directories will not work. If you wish to use this feature instead of Frontpage, please disable the Frontpage extensions.

You can use Frontpage directly to create password protected directories just like you normally can here. Alternatively, you can disable frontpage extensions and still use Frontpage to publish the site design via Webdav or FTP

Is it safe for me to uninstall the Frontpage extensions myself through CPanel, I'm pretty sure I don't use them as I have no idea what they are but I don't want to rush into anything I don't really understand.

Any help and/or advice on this would be fantastic.

Be well and safe journeys,
Kirk.

 

[Genesis]

Briar, depends on whether you have FP themes installed like a counter and link bars and/or special fonts, as they will obviously stop working if you disable FP. If you have no themes installed there shouldn't be any problem. I've read a few discussions about this and looks as though the disabling of FP may not even work to get to password protecting the directory in the end. For some when they disable FP it works, but for others not. Culprit seems to be a known incompatibility between frontpage extensions (which cpanel regards as extinct and not supported by Microsoft any longer) and password protecting directories, which cPanel also regards as obsolete. cPanel is not planning on fixing it as a result.

I found this explanation about a "known" cpanel bug - 6722) by a root administrator of cPanel of a while ago - maybe worth reading the whole thread:
https://forums.cpanel.net/f5/frontp...-protected-directories-107061.html#post706666

FrontPage extensions and Password Protect Directories feature actually didn't work many times, which resulted in a bug case (6722) concerning that issue. After testing to try to get a working setup between FrontPage extensions and password protect directories where one wasn't found that worked 100% of the time, the decision was made to simply remove the ability to have both in cPanel. The warning message in cPanel > Password Protect Directories occurs as soon as you enable FrontPage extensions on the main domain and you cannot enable both FrontPage extensions and Password Protect Directories as a result on any domain or subdomain on the account.

It is likely best to encourage users who need password protect directories to convert to WebDAV or begin using one of the numerous free FTP clients to publish their site, especially since the end of life date for FrontPage extensions occurred many years ago and those extensions are simply no longer supported by Microsoft themselves. I realize that some users will be unable to cease using FrontPage, but those users may instead then need to find an alternative in their script for login authentication methods.

Thanks!

This is also a good thread to read:
http://www.lunarforums.com/frontpag...nderstand_new_message_in_cpanel-t55718.0.html

Particularly the experience of this user:

On a linux server this works (but your milage may vary

In cPanel:

* Uninstall the FrontPage extensions
* Password protect the folder
* Reinstall the FrontPage extensions.

This is a problem with a newer version of C-Panel. I encountered the same problem last year with a previously password-protected folder. I got the same message Dave did. I followed Rick's 3 steps; but all my theme information disappeared, and FP features, like the counter, were reset. FP linkbars disappeared, fonts changed and the site was a mess!. Of course, I panicked big time.

I would add a fourth step to the above: Open your FP site in FrontPage, click "remote site" and log in. Look in your local _themes folder; then look in the remote _themes folder. You will need to reinstall your theme into the remote site, since reinstalling the FP extensions wiped out your theme info, for some reason. I was able to do so by simply publishing the site. You may need to copy/paste the theme. I reset my counter by right-clicking on the counter, and selecting "front page component properties." You should probably note your current count of views before you uninstall the FP extensions if you want your counter to continue with an accurate number of viewers.

 

[Briar Spirit]

Thank you for your excellent help my friend, that is more than I could have hoped for, most appreciated.

I have only the vBulletin forum installed so i shall go ahead and uninstall the front page stuff, many thanks for your help Genesis. :good:

 

[Sander k]

Why don't you use htacces instead?

 

[Briar Spirit]

Why don't you use htacces instead?

I looked into using the htaccess with a htpasswd file but couldn't figure it out let alone how to do more than one directory, I have 4 directories I need to password protect. I haven't had the chance to get this sorted out yet, ran out of time yesterday, if I can get this done without mucking about in CPanel that would be awesome, would you be able to tell me how to do the htaccess properly with the htpasswd file please? I followed the instructions from that htaccesstools instruction website and ended up getting an access error, just couldn't make sense of it all!