i'm trying to install xoops on windows vista. In the sext page of the installation, there were instructions to change the folders from read only to writable. However, when i right-click and change the folder permission to writable, when I check back permissions, it reverts back to read only.

The files inside that folder is already writable. However, I could not proceed with the installation. I get a web page cannot be displayed issue.

Hope someone here can help me.

Probably your htdocs or www folder lies in a directory chain (program files) that do not permit these changes.
Which internet server do you use?
Install eg XAMPP in D:\xampp\ (download the zip archive and unpack it, the permissions will be OK there (all write))

Hi ghia!

i'm using Apache 2.2. Do you have any idea to how to solve it with Apache? :)

Configuring the htdocs directory for the files somewhere else (D:\www\)?

Thanks ghia. Tried your suggestion and I think I can say I tried everything but it never worked:

1. changing the root directory to c:\xoops....and got the
following error on step 3 of the installation:

This error (HTTP 500 Internal Server Error) means that the website you are visiting had a server problem which prevented the webpage from displaying.

For more information about HTTP errors, see Help.

2. changed back to the original apache root directory, and still the same error on step 3 of installation.

I think the problem is with the file permissions. When you right-click on the folder, the read-only checkbox is selected. I take ownership of the file, changed permissions, and when I check back, the read-only checkbox is selected again. i don't know why vista is doing this to me. =p

although i've read somewhere that vista usually ignores the directory file permissions.

I've tried installing xoops way back in 2004 in windows 98 and it was user-friendly. So I'm pretty sure the problem is vista. I'm just not sure if it's my permissions. I'm stuck stuck stuck. *sigh*

is there anything else you think I can try?

If this is local installation, try WAMP server (http://www.wampserver.com), and see if this is better.

Worked for me on XP, Vista, and Windows 7.

Thanks, Mamba. I'm trying it today and now troubleshooting in wamp. I'm able to get to the login page, but when I try to get to http://localhost/xoops/index.php, I get a webpage cannot be displayed error. when I installed wamp, i already have the following installed so i suppose wamp is using these:

apache - 2.2.1
php - 5.3.0
mysql - 5.1.36

I placed by xoops folder withinn c:\wamp\www

it's solved! I ended up using xampp as I have the same problem with wampserver.

Thanks again for the suggestions!