If you plan to use FrontPage to build and update your web site, you need to activate FrontPage publishing for your site before you create or upload any web site files to your hosting account.

When you activate FrontPage, you install files called server extensions in your web site directory; these files are essential to publishing your site with FrontPage. FrontPage's publishing tool is set to "Inactive" by default, which means it's not ready to communicate with your hosting account. Before you can publish, you'll need to activate FrontPage, creating the "language" your software and site need to exchange information.

If you upload web pages you created in FrontPage without activating first, some server extensions may not be installed. If any of your files reference these missing server extensions, the FrontPage publishing tool will not be able to read them properly. Activation will fail, creating an error message.

The activation process is simple, and requires only that you create a default author for FrontPage publishing. Depending on the number of files in your root web (your top-level site directory) when you begin, the activation process may take from a few seconds to several hours to complete. Learn how to activate FrontPage.