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Use your own design software to create your Web site

You can create beautiful, functional, and highly customized Web pages for your site using the Microsoft Office Live Small Business Web design tool. Use the Web design tool to take full advantage of easy updates and maintenance, and image and document storage. If you have Web pages that were created outside of your Office Live Small Business account, you should consider re-creating those pages using the Web design tool in Office Live Small Business.

But if you decide that you want to use your own Web design software to create or edit your Web pages, you can add those pages to your site. The decision to use your own design software, however, significantly affects both your existing Web pages and future Web page design. For more information about the effects of using your own design software, see About using your own Web design software.

 Note   If you want to generate reporting statistics for your Web pages, you must embed a tracking code in each page. When you create a page using the Web design tools in Microsoft Office Live Small Business, this is done automatically. If, however, you are creating your pages with your own Web design software, then you must add the tracking code to each page. For more information, see Add statistics-generating code to Web pages.

This Help topic provides you with step-by-step instructions for deactivating the Office Live Small Business Web design tool and adding and editing Web pages that you created with your own Web design tools.

What do you want to do?

Change account settings to accept Web pages created using your Web design software

 Note   When you change your account setting to accept Web pages created using your Web design software, all existing Web pages are removed and permanently deleted. We recommend that you back up your Web site before you make this change. For more information about how to back up your site, see Back up, restore, or reset your Web site.

  1. On the Office Live Small Business Home page, at the top, click Web Site. Page Manager appears.
  2. On the Page Manager page, to the right of the Page Manager title, click Site actions, and then click Activate advanced design features.
  3. In the Advanced design features dialog box, click OK.
  4. In Page Manager, click Site actions, and then click Activate third-party design tools.
  5. On the Use your own Web design software page, click Activate now.
  6. In the Activation Confirmation dialog box, select the check box confirming that you want to deactivate the Office Live Small Business Web design tool, and then click OK.

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Create a Web folder

All of the files for your Web site must be uploaded to the Office Live server that hosts your Web site domain. The easiest way to access the server is to create a Web folder on your computer. To create a Web folder, you must first download and install the Office Live Web folder connector on your computer.

Download the Office Live Web folder connector

  1. On the Office Live Small Business Home page, at the top, click Web Site. The Web Site Home page appears with a large yellow box under Getting started.
  2. Under Getting started, in the large yellow box, click Download.
  3. In the Opening MOLWFC.msi dialog box, click Save File.
  4. In the Downloads dialog box, double-click MOLWFC.msi.
  5. In the confirmation dialog box, click OK.
  6. If you receive a security warning, click Run.

Automatically create the Web folder

If you use Internet Explorer as your Web browser, and the Office Live Web folder connector is installed on your computer, Office Live Small Business can automatically create a Web folder on your computer that is connected to the Office Live server that hosts your domain. To see if Office Live Small Business created a Web folder:

  1. On the Office Live Small Business Home page, at the top, click Web Site.
  2. On the Web Site Home page, under Getting started, look for a folder icon followed by the words Go to your Web site folder. If these words appear, Office Live Small Business created a Web folder. If they do not appear on your Web Site Home page, you must manually create the Web folder.

Manually create the Web folder

If Office Live Small Business does not create a Web folder for you, and the Office Live Web folder connector is installed on your computer, you can create one.

If you use Windows 2000 or Windows XP, to create the Web folder (also called a network connection), do the following:

  1. Click Start, and then click My Network Places.
  2. In the My Network Places window, under Network Tasks, click Add a network place.
  3. In the Add Network Place Wizard, click Next.
  4. Select Choose another network location, and then click Next.
  5. In the What is the name of this network place? box, type the address for your Web site (for example, http://contoso.web.officelive.com), and then click Next.
  6. If prompted, type your Office Live Small Business user name and password, and then click OK.
  7. If you want to give this new location a name, in the Type a new name for this network location box, type a name. Choose a name that you will easily recognize as your Office Live Small Business Web folder. Click Next.
  8. To open the new connection, select the Open this network location when I click Finish check box, and then click Finish.

If you use Windows Vista, to create the Web folder, do the following:

  1. Click Start, and then click Computer.
  2. Right-click in the white area of the window, and then click Add a Network Location.
  3. In the Add Network Location wizard, click Next.
  4. Select Choose a custom network location, and then click Next.
  5. In the Internet or network address box, type the address for your Web site (for example, http://contoso.web.officelive.com), and then click Next.
  6. If prompted, type your Office Live Small Business user name and password, and then click OK.
  7. If you want to give your Web folder a name, in the Type a name for this network location box, type a name. Choose a name that you easily recognize as your Web folder. Click Next.
  8. To open the new connection, select the Open this network location when I click Finish check box, and then click Finish.

If you use the Mac OS X operating system, you can also create a Web folder as a network connection. The location associated with this connection is your domain (for example, http://contoso.web.officelive.com). For more information about how to create a network connection, see Web Folders/WebDAV Support.

Troubleshoot connecting to your Web folder

The following are issues you may find when connecting to your Web folder

Install Windows Vista updates.

If you use Windows Vista and you are having trouble connecting to your Web folder, you may be able to resolve the problem by installing the following Windows Vista updates.

 Note   After installation is complete, you must restart your computer.

Clear multiple e-mail addresses from your Windows user account.

If you receive an error message when you try to access your Web folder, you may have multiple e-mail addresses stored in your Windows user account.

Windows XP and Windows Server 2003

To remove multiple e-mail addresses on computers that are running Windows XP or Windows Server 2003:

  1. On your desktop, click Start, and then click Control Panel.
  2. Click User Accounts. Click the Advanced tab, and then click Manage Passwords.
  3. In the Stored User Names and Passwords list, select all the e-mail addresses listed.
  4. Click Remove, and then click OK. Try to access your Web folder in Office Live Small Business from your computer again.

Windows Vista

To remove multiple e-mail addresses on computers that are running Windows Vista:

  1. On your desktop, click Start, and then click Control Panel.
  2. Click User Accounts. In the left column under Tasks, click Manage your network passwords.
  3. In the Stored User Names and Passwords list, select all the e-mail addresses.
  4. Click Remove, click OK, and then click Close. Try to access your Web folder in Office Live Small Business from your computer again.
  5. Clear your browser cache.
  6. When you sign in to your Office Live Small Business account, select the option to remember your password.

For more information about troubleshooting Web folders, see Web Folders/WebDAV Support.

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Add files to your Web folder

All of the files needed to support your Web pages must be stored in your Office Live Small Business Web folder.

 Important   The file name for your home page must be default.xxxx (for example, the page can be named default.htm or default.aspx). If no file named default.xxxx exists in the Web folder, your customers will receive a Page Not Found message.

Server-side programming, in which a script is used on the Web server to generate dynamic Web pages, is not allowed. If your Web pages require, for example, ASP.NET or PHP files to function correctly, these pages cannot be used on an Office Live Small Business Web site.

 Note   Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 , Windows Internet Explorer 7, Internet Explorer 8, and Mozilla Firefox provide the best viewing experience for this process.

You can upload files to the Web folder. The easiest way to upload your files to your Web folder is to open your Web folder in one window, open the folder on your computer's hard disk drive that contains your Web site files in another window, and drag the files from one window to the other.

Open your Web folder

If Office Live Small Business created your Web folder, you can open the folder by taking the following steps:

  1. On the Office Live Small Business Home page, at the top, click Web Site. Page Manager appears.
  2. In Page Manager, click Go to your Web site folder.
  3. You may be prompted for your e-mail address and password. If so, type the e-mail address and password that you use to sign in to your Office Live Small Business account.
  4. If you receive a security warning, click Allow.
  5. Your Office Live Small Business Web folder appears.

If the Go to your Web site folder link does not appear on your Web site Home page, and you are using a Windows operating system, you can open the Web folder by taking the following steps:

  1. Click Start, and then click Network.
  2. In the right pane, double-click the name of your Office Live Small Business Web folder.
  3. You may be prompted for your e-mail address and password. If so, type the e-mail address and password that you use to sign in to your Office Live Small Business account.

 Note   If you have trouble connecting to your Web folder, see Troubleshoot connecting to your Web folder.

Upload your Web page files

  1. Click Start, and then click Computer.
  2. In the left pane, click the name of the folder that contains your Web site files.
  3. In the right pane, select and drag your Web site files to the window that displays the contents of your Office Live Small Business Web folder. Be sure to include all of the files needed to create the Web pages, including the Web page files (.aspx or .htm files), image files, document files, and style sheets.

 Note   Some file types cannot be copied to your Web folder because Office Live does not allow Web pages to include server-side programming. File types that are not allowed include ASP.NET files and PHP files.

Troubleshoot your new Web pages

The following are issues you may find in using your own Web design software for your Web pages.

A "Page not found" message appears when customers try to access Web pages

Your home page must include the default.xxxx extension. For example, the address for the Fourth Coffee Home page is www.fourthcoffee.com/default.aspx.

Web pages do not appear in site reports

To use the Site Reports feature, you must insert a tracking code on your Web pages. Add the code to each page for which you want to collect site analysis statistics.

 Note   After you add the tracking code to your site, it may take up to a day before the traffic data is displayed.

To insert a tracking code on your page:

  1. On the Office Live Small Business Home page, at the top, click Web Site.
  2. On your Web site Home page, on the left navigation bar, click Reports.
  3. On the Reports page, on the left navigation bar, click Get code.
  4. Follow the instructions on the page to copy the tracking code.
  5. Following the process in Edit files in your Web folder, open the source code for each Web page file by using your file editing software (for example, you can use Notepad). Just above the </body> tag, paste the tracking code that you copied in step 4.

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Edit files in your Web folder

If you added Web pages to your site that were created using your own Web design software, you maintain those Web pages using your own Web design and file editing software. If you do not have a copy of your Web site files on your computer's hard disk drive, you must first copy the files from the Office Live Small Business Web folder to a folder on your computer before you can edit the files.

  1. Follow the steps in the previous procedure to open your Web folder.
  2. Copy the files that you want to edit, and then paste them into a folder on your computer's hard drive.
  3. Edit the files as needed.
  4. Upload the edited files using the steps in the previous procedure to upload your Web page files.

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