Umbraco on Winhost.com - Installation Guide

I recently installed Umbraco (4.0.3) on one of my Winhost accounts as part of my move from Webhost4life.com to Winhost.com. I ran into a few problems, so I thought I would post a short guide to help others.


If you don't know what the Umbraco content management system is, then have a read about Umbraco. It is becoming a highly desired skill on ASP.NET developer CVs as well. The learning curve is steep but relatively short. I highly recommend it as a CMS.

To install Umbraco on Winhost.com you need to follow these steps carefully:

1. Open a new Basic or Max plan with Winhost.com. You will need to install Umbraco in the application root. You cannot install it in a virtual or subdirectory. I installed it on a Basic plan.
2. Create a new database using the Site Manager - MS SQL 2008. At the end of the process you'll have a connection string displayed to you if you click on Manage. Make a note of it.
3. Download the latest version of Umbraco from Codeplex.com. Unzip the files into a folder on your hard drive.
4. Download the suggested 3.5 web.config. 
5. Copy this web.config over the existing one in the unzipped Umbraco folder. Open it is notepad, because you need to edit it.
6. Remove the ConnectionStrings section that Niel Hartvig has left in for testing.
7. Remove the associated MembershipProvider key (AspNetSqlMemberShipProvider) in the Membership - Providers section.
8. The Trust level is currently commented out. Change it from Medium to Full and uncomment the line. See System.Web - Trust.
9. Under Compilation set Debug to false
10. Disable Tracing
11. Do not change the SQL connection for the time being. You can do that in the install process.
12. Save the web.config file.
13. If you want to run multiple domains/sites under Umbraco, open the config/umbracoSettings.config and change the useDomainPrefixes to true (under requestHandler).
14. Now copy all of the files to your hosting account (to the root) using FTP.
15. Open your website in your browser. You should be directed to the Umbraco install screen. http://yoursite.com/umbraco/
16. Agree to the terms and conditions
17. Enter your database connection details and click Confirm. 
18. If the database connection works then you can click on Install.
19. Next check the permissions. Under full trust everything should work. If it doesn't, check the web.config again to make sure that you did actually uncomment the line as well as editing it!
20. After the permissions have been checked and everything is ok, click Continue.
21. Enter the administrative password
22. Optionally install Runway. Note that you can always install Runway and the different modules easily later. I advise you don't install it now. 

I would advise you to check out the Creative Website Starter Kit (CWS) package first, as it gets you up and running quicker. Runway is just a bit daunting as a blank canvas to get started. Within the Umbraco administration for your website, you can go to Developer - Umbraco Package Repository - Starter Kits and install it directly from there.

You should now have installed Umbraco. Congratulations! Next time I'll write about how you configure multiple domains/ sites in Umbraco on Winhost.com.