Table of Contents
Installing Fotoware On-premises (pre-FR20 releases) from scratch
How to install FotoWeb on a clean Windows server with no prior version of FotoWeb installed.
12. February 2026
Table of Contents
Prerequisites
Make sure the system requirements, network requirements, and other settings are met. For more information, see FotoWeb system requirements and Before you install FotoWeb.
If you are installing Fotoware On-premises Feature Release 20 or later, see How to install Fotoware On-premises Feature Release 20 from scratch.
Starting the installation
- Download FotoWeb from the Downloads section of the Customer Portal and then double-click on the installer. The installer may download additional required software before starting the FotoWeb installation, so an Internet connection is necessary when running an installer downloaded from the Fotoware website.
- Select Install.
- The installer wizard displays a welcome dialog box. Select Next to continue.
- It's always a good idea to review the release notes, as they contain information about new functionality, fixes, and known issues that may impact your workflow. Select Install to start copying files.
- When the file copy process is complete, the following dialog box appears. Select Finish. The FotoWeb Configuration Tool helps you to set the basic system preferences automatically.
Initial configuration of FotoWeb
After the installation, the FotoWeb Configuration Tool helps you to set basic properties for your system. These settings can be changed later in the FotoWeb configuration, if necessary.
The installation program places a shortcut to the FotoWeb configuration tool on your desktop. You can cancel the configuration at this time if you would like to set up FotoWeb later. However, you must run the configuration wizard before you can start using FotoWeb. After completing the configuration wizard, the shortcut disappears from the desktop, since all subsequent configurations can be performed in Operations Center Settings.
Select Next to proceed with the configuration, or Cancel to configure FotoWeb later. If you cancel, you can start the configuration tool later by double-clicking the Configure FotoWeb shortcut on the desktop.
User account settings
All Fotoware applications use a common background service account to handle client requests and interact with the server file system and network. Suppose another Fotoware server application has already been set up on your server. In that case, chances are the process account is already set, and this step of the configuration wizard will be skipped automatically. For more information about the background process account, see Setting a process account for Fotoware services.
Note
If no process account has already been set in the Operations Center Settings, you must enter a username and password here. The credentials will be verified, so typing the wrong password several times could result in the account being locked out.
If you specify a domain account and fill in the Domain field as yourcompany.com, yourcompany.net, or something similar using a suffix, you will not be able to use a trusted connection when connecting to the SQL database. That's because the SQL database stores the windows user with only the short form of the domain name, omitting the three-letter suffix (.net, .com, and so on) so that the SQL server will not be able to find the user.
Site identification
The site identification consists of a site name for internal use only, a host name, and an IP address that connects the site to IIS and the rest of the world. The site name can be anything you choose as long as it consists of letters [A-Z], [a-z], and [0-9]. The host name must be the fully qualified host name along with the IP address as configured in the website in IIS to which this FotoWeb site will be connected.
Selecting the IIS website
If you choose to host your FotoWeb on an IIS server, you must specify a unique website in IIS. The wizard displays all the websites that are available in IIS. Choose the website with the same host name and IP address as configured in the previous dialog.
Testing your site
After installation, you must start the FotoWeb service (use the Operations Center Settings shortcut on the desktop). Remember to start the Index Manager service before FotoWeb.
You can then test the site by navigating to the FotoWeb site's address that you set in the configuration wizard (for example, http://yourfotoweb.com/fotoweb).