Running ProductCart on a Server with Parent Paths Disabled

Unfortunately there is a server setting on Windows server that creates a bit of an headache for businesses running ASP applications. It’s called “Parent Paths”. In a nutshell, an application like ProductCart uses the dot-dot-slash (”../”) notation (i.e. parent paths) to load “include” files (files that are dynamically included into another file when the latter is parsed by the Web server) from a variety of other files. Sometimes Microsoft's Internet Information Server (IIS) is setup so that parent paths are disallowed, in which case ProductCart would not function properly.

If you activated ProductCart on a server that does not support parent paths, the server would return error messages similar to the following:

Active Server Pages, ASP 0131 (0x80004005)
The Include file '../includes/settings.asp' cannot contain
'..' to indicate the parent directory.
/productcart/pc/home.asp

If your server has Parent Paths disabled, you have two options:

1. You can use the PPD version of ProductCart. This is located in the “Parent Paths Disabled” folder within the ZIP file that you downloaded when you purchased ProductCart. Once you have uploaded the files to your server, the steps to activating ProductCart are the same as in the Parent Path Enabled version. If you have not downloaded the file yet, please refer to the order confirmation e-mail that you received after placing your order for download instructions.
2. You can enable parent paths in IIS. Note however that some Web hosting companies may not be willing to edit this setting for you. If you have access to the Web server (e.g. you have a dedicated server), follow these steps to allow parent paths on a Windows 2003 server:
   1. Open the IIS Console
   2. Right click on the web site you are using and choose “Properties”
   3. Select “Home Directory” and click the “Configuration” button
   4. Select “Options”
   5. Check the box that says “Enable Parent Paths”

The PPD version of ProductCart assumes that the “productcart” folder has been placed in the root folder of your Web server’s account. If you would like to move it to a sub-folder, or change its name, you will have to replace the following strings globally within the “productcart” folder.

Using a tool such as the Find and Replace utility built into Adobe® Dreamweaver, run the following “find and replace” tasks on the entire productcart folder.

The same is true if you wanted to rename the "productcart" folder.

For example, if you wanted to move it one directory down, within a “shop” folder, you would have to perform the following task:

Replace:

 virtual="productcart/includes/

… with:

 virtual="shop/productcart/includes/

Replace:

 virtual="productcart/pc/

… with:

 virtual="shop/productcart/pc/

Replace:

 arrBaseFolder(0)="/productcart/pc

… with:

 arrBaseFolder(0)="/shop/productcart/pc

Replace:

 arrBaseFolder(0)="../../pc

… with:

 arrBaseFolder(0)="/shop/productcart/pc

Replace:

 file="../xml/

… with:

 virtual="productcart/xml/

In this example, let's assume you wanted to rename the “productcart” folder “shop”. You would have to perform the following task (and also remember to read this page:

Replace:

 virtual="productcart/includes/

… with:

 virtual="shop/includes/

Replace:

 virtual="productcart/pc/

… with:

 virtual="shop/pc/

Replace:

 arrBaseFolder(0)="/productcart/pc

… with:

 arrBaseFolder(0)="/shop/pc

Replace:

 arrBaseFolder(0)="../../pc

… with:

 arrBaseFolder(0)="/shop/pc

Replace:

 file="../xml/

… with:

 virtual="shop/xml/

To find out if you are using ProductCart with Parent Paths Enabled or Disabled, do the following:

• Log into the Control Panel: is there “PPD” next to the version number? If so, then you are running ProductCart with Parent Paths Disabled.
• FTP into the store and download the file ”ppdstatus.inc”: does it contain PPD=“1”? If so, then you are running ProductCart with Parent Paths Disabled.
• Otherwise, you are running ProductCart with Parent Paths Enabled (more common).