Last modified 3/8/2011.
Version 6.6 changed a lot of things in terms of how the Windows versions of ProjectForum and CourseForum were delivered and run. This page explains those differences, and should be particularly helpful for people upgrading from earlier versions.
Prior to version 6.6, there were two separate versions of ProjectForum and CourseForum for Windows. The "normal" one, named projectforum.exe (or courseforum.exe), started up with a small GUI allowing you to start and stop the server. The other version, named pfconsole.exe (or cfconsole.exe) allowed you run either from the command line, or as a Windows service.
In the new version, there is a single download, named projectforum-setup.exe (or courseforum-setup.exe). This allows you to run like before, with a simple GUI. However, the GUI also allows you to install as a Windows service; you no longer need to do this via a separate installer. This should make the transition between the two ways of running much easier, and hopefully eliminate some confusion along the way. See the screenshots below.
If you're already running the Windows service version, the installer on the new version should automatically detect that, uninstall the old version, and install the new version as a service. If you've done some particular customizing and this isn't automatically detected, you should uninstall the old version yourself and run the installer again. The command line tool "sc" is one way to do this, e.g. by running "sc delete ProjectForum" from the Command Prompt (as administrator).
Note that starting with version 6.6.2, there is a new "-servicename" commandline parameter; this allows services to be run under a different name than the standard ("ProjectForum" or "CourseForum"), and also allows you to run more than one service on a particular machine, by giving each a different name.
Previous versions of the software attempted to write their data into whereever the software was installed (e.g. "C:\Program Files\ProjectForum"). In newer versions of Windows, the recommended practice is to write it into a user's home directory, separate from the application. When starting from scratch, CourseForum and ProjectForum 6.6 will respect these newer conventions.
You'll therefore likely find your data stored at e.g. "C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\ProjectForum".
If you already have data from an earlier version of ProjectForum stored elsewhere, the installer will detect that and use the existing data. If you have placed things in a non-standard location and the installer does not detect your existing data, you will appear to start with a brand new site. Don't panic! You can still point the software at your existing data.
To do this, identify the directory where the "new" data files were written to, e.g. "...AppData\Roaming\ProjectForum" or "...AppData\Roaming\CourseForum". Create a plain text file in that directory called "pfconfig.txt" (or "cfconfig.txt" for CourseForum). Place a single line in that text file that looks like this:
directory C:\Path\To My\Existing Data
VERY IMPORTANT: The "pfconfig.txt" (or "cfconfig.txt") file is only read when the front-end GUI application is started up. That means, if you make a change, it's not enough to just stop and start from the GUI, you need to fully exit the GUI and relaunch it.
In the new version, the installer will create two executables. The first is named "projectforum.exe" (or "courseforum.exe") and is the program that manages the small GUI. The second is named "pfserver.exe" (or "cfserver.exe") and is the piece that runs the actual ProjectForum or CourseForum web server. Note that in previous versions, the executable that had the GUI also contained the complete server; now they run as two separate processes.
Previous versions used a bundled utility called "winserv" to manage running as a Windows service. This is no longer used, and the server executable now manages everything to do with services itself internally.