Installing SeCommerce

For best results, watch the 9 minute Demo "Installing SeCommerce on your Localhost" to see how to create your fully functional Localhost in under 15 minutes.

1. Preliminaries

Make sure the following programs are installed on your computer:

2. Create an Empty Database

  1. Using SQL Server Management Studio, create a new, empty database by following these steps:
    • Sign in to your local SQL Server database instance
    • Expand the server node, right-click Databases, and select Add Database...
    • Enter a Database Name, and click OK
  2. Next, create a new database login account:
    • Expand the Security folder, right-click Logins, and select New Login...
    • Enter a Login name
    • Select SQL Server authentication (if SQL Server authentication does not appear as an option, exit this dialog, and on the main SQL Server Management Studio screen, right-click your server name, select Properties, switch to the Security page, and select SQL Server and Windows Authentication mode; click OK, and restart the database server instance)
    • Enter a password, and de-select Enforce Password Policy
    • Set the default database to be the one you created in step A
    • On the User Mapping page, select the database you created in step A, and assign the user db_owner role membership
    • Click OK

Note: if using SQL Server 2005, you may omit step B and use Windows Authentication instead; in SQL Server 2008, the default security policies are more strict, and it is simpler to use SQL Server Authentication, as described above.

3. Create a new IIS Web Application

Create a new, empty web application in IIS by following these steps:

  • Open Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager: this program is accessed from the Adminstrative Tools menu
  • Expand the server node and the Sites folder, right-click Default Web Site and select Add Application...
  • Enter an Alias (this will be the URL of your localhost site)
  • Select or create a new Physical path to store your site files in: note that the IIS system user needs to have permission to access this folder, so it is best to create a new folder in a location that is already configured for IIS, such as C:\Inetpub\wwwroot\
  • Click OK

4. Install your Website

Launch the SeCommerce Developer Toolkit* and open the Install a Website Wizard. The wizard will walk you through the following steps:

  1. Create a new Account and assign a Website ID
  2. Create a database connection string to connect to the database you created in step 2; there is a convenient tool for building a database connection string, which can be launched using the button at the bottom of this screen; for a localhost site, you only need to enter a localhost connection string
  3. Select database server, get database status, and install SeCommerce database tables and stored procedures
  4. Select physical website path (created in step 3) and enter localhost website domains (optionally enter live website domains, not required for localhost)
  5. Create and save Web.config file, then Install other Essential Files by clicking the appropriate buttons
  6. Select a starter theme to install, recommended: Zen Starter Theme
  7. Final setup: you must assign Write permission to the IIS system user on the ProductImages and OtherImages folders:
    • Open Windows Explorer and navigate to your website directory
    • Right-click OtherImages and select Properties
    • On the Security tab, click Edit
    • Select the IIS user account (probably IIS_IUSRS) from the list, and assign Full Control
    • Click OK, then repeat the above steps on the ProductImages folder

* Windows Vista users must run this application as an Administrator: either right-click the application shortcut and select Run as administrator, or to avoid having to do this each time you launch the application, navigate to C:\Program Files\Silver Earth\SeCommerce Developer Toolkit, right-click SeComManager.exe, select Properties, and on the Compatibility tab, select Run this program as an administrator; click OK.

5. Configure your Website

Launch the SeCommerce Administration program to perform some initial website configuration:

  • Logon using the default id/pass of "userid/password"
  • Go to Setup on the ribbon bar, and click on Websites
    • General: enter your Website Name, optionally upload a website logo (appears on receipts and invoices)
    • Localhost Domain URLs: make sure your Main Website and Secure Checkout URLs are correct
    • You may also wish to edit additional configuration values
  • Add categories, catalogs, products, shipping setup. . .

6. Customize your Website

Your new website is now ready to be customized, you can edit the website files, SeCommerce modules, stylesheets, etc. by opening the site in an ASP.NET capable HTML editor such as Microsoft Visual Web Developer Express.

When your site is ready to go live, you will need to add your live database connection string and domain URLs, recreate your Web.config file, and obtain a live website license from Silver Earth (the free license is only good for localhost development).

Please contact us if you encounter any difficulties along the way.