About the pre-production feature
The pre-production feature provides an option to organization administrators to test their Web site content, before it is made available to their users. This feature is not enabled by default. To enable this feature, refer to the General Help.
Points to remember while using this feature:
The Publish page enables you to transfer only the files present in the pre-production organization's \inetpub\wwwroot folder to the production organization. Files present outside the \inetpub\wwwroot folder are not transferred to the production organization.
Depending upon the pre-production organization's requirements, you can provision either IIS FTP Service, File Manager, or FrontPage Server Extensions 2002 for the organization administrator to publish Web content to the organization.
Optional: You can specify an exclude directory in the pre-production organization's file system, which will not be transferred to the production organization. To enable this feature, you must create a registry key called ExcludeFolder on the server where the preproduction organization is being hosted.
The ExcludeFolder registry key must be created before creating the preproduction organization.
To create the ExcludeFolder registry key:
Log on to the server where the pre-production organization is being hosted.
Click Start > Run, type regedit, then click OK. The Registry Editor is displayed.
In the Registry Editor window, expand My Computer > HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE > SOFTWARE > Ensim, then click Ensim Unify.
In the Registry Editor window, click Edit > New, then click String Value. A new key is created in the right pane.
Rename this new key as ExcludeFolder.
Right-click ExcludeFolder, then click Modify.
In the Edit String window, enter the location of the exclude directory in the Value data text box. For example, If you want to set the exclude directory under the Inetpub\wwwroot directory of each organization, then enter the value as Inetpub\wwwroot\exclude.
Click OK to save the location, then close the Registry Editor window.
The ExcludeFolder registry key has been created.
While creating the pre-production organization, if the ExcludeFolder registry key is already present on the hosting server, then the exclude directory is automatically created in the pre-production organization’s file system at the location mentioned in the ExcludeFolder registry key’s value. If the ExcludeFolder registry key is created after the pre-production organization is created, then you must manually create the exclude directory in the pre-production organization’s file system at the location mentioned in the ExcludeFolder registry key’s value.
This section describes the known issues of the pre-production feature for the Windows Web Hosting service.
During the data transfer, the virtual directories present in the pre-production organization are not created on the production organization. The organization administrator will have to create these virtual directories manually in the production organization using the control panel.
This section describes the known limitations of the pre-production feature for the Windows Web Hosting service.
Before deleting the production organization, you must delete the pre-production organization.
While publishing to the production organization, system directories such as _private created by FrontPage in the pre-production organization's file system are not copied to the production organization.