Installing on Windows
The Windows installer is an executable program that will install Python, Zope, and Plone. It sets up Plone to run as a service (meaning that it runs in the background) and includes a controller program to start and stop the service and perform major configuration.
Running the Windows installer
The Plone Windows installer you've downloaded should have a filename like Plone-3.2.0.exe. The filename will be specific to the Plone version, and may also include a build number for the installer version. Open this file to run the installer.
This should bring up a welcome screen. The Windows installer follows the standard Windows installer wizard format. You should click on Next to continue. The second page of the wizard will ask you to accept that Plone is licensed under the GNU Public License. Assuming you agree, click on the I accept the agreement option button and then click on Next. This will bring you to the following dialog box that allows you to specify the installation target directory:
If you're setting up a production server, there may be many considerations, such as drive speed and backup strategy, that go into selecting an installation target. For a test or development installation, though, the primary consideration is that there will be ample disk space to include both the installed components and your developing web sites. Click on Next once you've specified a target install directory, and you'll move into the administrative account setup dialog box.
You'll need to use the account name and password you specify here to do initial administration of your site, so make a note of them and click on Next to move to the options confirmation dialog box.
If your destination is correct, go ahead and click on the Install button to proceed. Expect the installation to take a substantial amount of time. Unlike some binary installers, the Plone Windows installer is not just extracting files into the target directory. Much of the install time will be spent using the newly-installed Python to compile Plone's libraries and Zope's libraries into efficient byte code. The installer also creates a Plone site object inside a new Zope database.
Go ahead and click on the Finish button once the installer finishes all that work.
Running Plone
Take a look, now, at your Windows Start | All Programs menu. There should be a new Plone item, containing several options.
The Plone shortcut, with Plone's three-dot logo, is the Plone controller, which you'll use to start, stop, and configure the Plone service. The Python item will open an interactive Python interpreter that you can use to explore Python. Links is a set of web links to convenient online resources.
The Development sub-menu has two very useful options:
- Plone Debug: This runs Plone in a foreground console window in debug mode. Debug mode gives you advanced diagnostics, and can be particularly useful in tracking down why a particular add-on module won't load.
- Setup Environment: This opens a Windows command-line console with environment variables set to point to your Zope/Plone install and its Python libraries. This helps you run Python scripts in an environment similar to the one used by Zope and Plone.
For starting and stopping Plone, you'll want to use the Plone controller application. Run it and you'll see the status of the Plone service, and a button that will allow you to start Plone (if it is not running already).
If you're running any other Internet services on the installation computer—such as Microsoft's Internet Information Server (IIS), then before starting Plone, take a moment to check the port assignments. Click on the Ports item in the left pane. The right pane will then display the ports assigned to the Plone service.
As it is freshly installed, the Plone service will be set up to use port 80 for a Plone web site, port 8080 for the through-the-web Zope Management Interface, 21 for File Transfer Protocol, and 8280 for WebDAV. (FTP and WebDAV make it easy to move files in bulk into your Plone site; they are disabled by default, and you may ignore them unless you need them.)
Port 80 is the standard port for HTTP. If you already have a web server (such as IIS) running on the target computer, there is a very good chance that it's already using port 80. If so, you will need to choose an alternate port for the Plone web interface. Port 81 or 8081 might be a good choice.
After considering your port choices, click on Status in the left pane to return to the Status view. You may now start Plone by clicking the Start Plone button. This will take a moment, particularly the first time, but you will soon see the status indicator change to say Plone is running.
You may now use the Site Management buttons—View Plone... or Zope Management Interface...—to open web browser views of Plone or the ZMI. We'll talk about what to expect in the Testing Your Installation section following the platform-specific installer sections.
To stop Plone, click the Stop Plone buton on the status pane.
Customizing startup
When you use the controller application to start and stop Plone, you are starting and stopping a service—a program that runs as a background process with no window of its own. The controller starts, stops, and shows the status of the service, but it's otherwise not connected to it. After using the controller to start Plone, you may close the controller, and Zope/Plone will continue to run on your computer. This is typical for applications such as web servers that provide the Internet services.
The Plone Windows installer configures the Plone service to start automatically when you start your computer. This is reasonable for a server configuration, but may not be what you want if you're wanting to use your new Plone installation for testing or development.
To change the startup behavior of the Plone service, run the Windows Services administration tool (Start | All Programs | Administrative Tools | Services).
Look for Zope instance at ... at the end of the services list and double-click on it.
Startup type Automatic will cause the service to start automatically with the computer. Change it to Manual if you want to avoid this; you may then use the Plone controller to start and stop Plone.
The installation layout
When you installed Plone, the installer put both the programs and objects database into the target directory. Much of this is Python and Zope, and will not change as you update your site. The data subdirectory is where Plone itself, the add-on products, and the object database are installed. This is what the Plone documentation will often refer to as your Zope Instance.
Uninstalling
You can uninstall Plone by using the Windows Control Panel's Add or Remove Programs applet. Uninstalling Plone will leave your target directory in place, with the object database and custom products, untouched. Delete the directory manually if you no longer need these.