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December 16, 1999

When you install Microsoft Office Server Extensions (OSE), you can specify a Web server for documents that your team works on collaboratively. Users participate in discussions on these documents by using the Web Discussions feature of OSE.

You can configure Web Discussions and specify the database where discussion data is stored when you install Office Server Extensions. Office Server Extensions comes with Microsoft Office 2000 Premium Edition (Disc 3) and Microsoft Office 2000 Professional Edition (Disc 1).

When users open a document on the Web server, they can use the Discussions toolbar in Internet Explorer 5 to add comments about the content. Discussion items appear in the document for other users to read and respond to.

The discussion data are stored separately from the document in a collaboration database. Office Server Extensions installs the Microsoft Data Engine (MSDE) database by default, but you can choose to install a separate SQL Server (version 6.5 or 7.0) instead.

Note   If you use SQL Server version 6.5 or 7.0 for the collaboration database, you can use any database on the network.

Requirements for Web Discussions

To enable Web Discussions in your organization, you need the following:

• Microsoft Windows NT® 4.0 Server or Microsoft Windows® 2000 Server and Internet Information Services (IIS)
• Administrator privileges on the server
• Collaboration database to store discussion data

Configure Web Discussions

You can configure Web Discussions when you install Office 2000 Server Extensions. At the end of the installation process, the Server Extensions Configuration Wizard starts and presents options to install and configure Web Discussions and the collaboration database.

To configure Web Discussions when you install OSE

1. Insert Office 2000 Premium Disc 3 or Office 2000 Professional Disc 1 into your CD-ROM drive.

   - or –

   Run Setupse.exe from the Office 2000 administrative installation point.

2. On the Microsoft Office 2000 panel, click Install Microsoft Office Server Extensions.

   Be sure you install OSE to the same location as the Web site; this location must be an NTFS-enabled drive to enable OSE security features.

3. At the end of the installation process, click Configure to start the Server Extensions Configuration Wizard.
4. Click Next and enter the name of the server that you want to use for Web Discussions.

   The default setting is MyServerName_Collab.

5. Enter a password for the database, retype it to confirm, and then click Next.
6. On the remaining panels of the wizard, enter the configuration settings that you want to use.

   You can choose to configure a mail server later by clicking No, I’ll do it later on the Mail Server panel.

Tip   If you have already installed SQL Server 7.0, the panel requesting a user name and password is slightly different. To proceed, type sa for the user name and leave the password blank (unless you have already defined an administrative userid and password).

If you have already installed OSE with Office 2000, along with the appropriate database, you can use the Office Web Server Administration Forms page to configure Web Discussions. Go to http://<YourServerName>/msoffice/msoadmin.

For more information about configuring a Web Discussions server after you install OSE, see How to Configure Web Discussions on an OSE-extended Web in the Office 2000 Resource Kit.

Related links

For more information about Web Discussions and collaboration databases, see Installing Office Server Extensions in the Office 2000 Resource Kit.

If you use SQL Server 6.5 for your collaboration database, you must configure it manually. For more information, see Using Office Server Extensions with SQL Server 6.5 in the Office Resource Kit Journal.

You can use a remote SQL Server to store discussion data for your OSE-extended web. For information about how to configure a remote collaboration database, see How to Configure Database Settings on an OSE-extended Web in the Office 2000 Resource Kit.