Installing Plone-3.2.1 using the Windows installer

Installing Plone

1. Download the installer from this page on plone.org: http://plone.org/products/plone.
2. Save it in a place you can remember, such as your desktop.
3. After the download is completed, double-click on the installer file to run it.
4. Go through the installation wizard.
5. Write down the installation location, such as "C:\Program Files\Plone". You'll need this later.
6. Write down the Username and Password you enter in the wizard. You'll need this later too.
7. Wait while the installer Extracts files and sets up your Plone instance.

Starting Plone

After the installer is finished, open a Command Prompt window (usually in Start > All Programs > Accessories).

CD into your Plone installation directory, which you wrote down earier. Example: cd "\Program Files\Plone"

To start your Plone instance for the first time, issue this command: "bin\instance fg".

This will start Plone in debug mode. It will display the port number that Plone is running on, which is 8080 by default.

To stop Plone, just use a CTL-C in you Command Prompt window.

Starting Plone as a service

If you'd like Plone to start as a service when you start your computer you'll need to CD into your Plone install directory, then issue the following command in your Command Prompt window: "bin\instance install". This will install a new service that will show up in your Services Management Console. It will be listed as: "Zope instance at C:\Program Files\Plone\parts\instance" if you installed to "C:\Program Files\Plone".

After the service is installed you can start Plone immediately by issuing the following command in your Command Prompt window: "bin\instance start".

If you'd like to remove the service later, just CD into your Plone install directory, then issue this command in your Command Prompt window: "bin\instance remove".

 Accessing Plone

You may need to tell your firewall to open TCP Port 8080 before you can access Plone's web interface.

Open a browser window and browse to http://localhost:8080/manage. You'll be asked for the Username and Password that you wrote down earlier.

After you log in you'll see the Zope Management Interface (ZMI). It's a web page with 3 panes; one on top, and under that a left navigation pane and the main pane on the right.

You'll want to add a Plone site, since the Plone-3.2.1 installer doesn't create one. To do this, look at the top, right section of the main pane and find a drop-down list of things to add. Use the drop-down to find "Plone Site" and select it. Give your site an Id, like "Plone", and a Title, like "My Plone Site". Then click on the "Add Plone Site" button near the bottom of the main pane. It will take a few minutes to create your new Plone site.

After your site is created you can access it with this URL: http://localhost:8080/Plone.

Have Fun!