Deployment Guidance for Dev / Test / Prod and Hosting Issues

[ZLA]

I'm new to Able Commerce and am configuring it for a client of mine. Normally, I develop locally, upload to a test environment and then apply the same changes to the Production environment. However, based on some other posts, it seems like the default installation of AC7 (.NET) may require the running of exe's on the web server, which will be a hosted environment for test and roduction.

Can I still follow my usual plan of dev to test to prod? If so, what do I need to worry about and what data needs to be changed between environments?

I normally use a webhost such as DiscountASP.Net or WebHost4Life which are very economical. The ones listed in the provider forums are 5 to 10 times as much. From the postings, it's primarily the install that's the extra value. Ongoing support doesn't seem like it would be as necessary. Any comments about that?

[jmestep]

You don't have to run exe's on the web server for Able 7. You can run the exe to unzip the files on your dev box, then upload the files to the live site. Then you can upload your file changes as you work on the site. The only thing I can think of that this won't work for is the settings for displaying particular conilbs-- those are stored in the Able database if you make any changes to the default layout. I always have to re-set those in the admin on the live site.