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osCommerce

The e-commerce.

Newbie question re Windows Server


cmds

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Posted

Hi,

 

I am not a programmer so please bear with me...

 

I currently have a Windows/ASP/Access DB site and wish to add a shopping cart to it. It is my understanding OSCommerce will work but I am wondering how problematic it would be.

 

The existing site has a member registration and the members can login to view their "Account" report information and non-ecom transactions. This info is drawn from the Access Database. I would like to be able to add a shopping cart and somehow have the member's transactions viewable in this same "Account" page. Ideally it would be great if once a transaction was completed, the system automatically populated the existing DB. I am not oppose to and will likely convert the existing Access DB to mySQL.

 

So...I have a few questions...

 

1. Is it pretty straight forward to add OSCommerce to a Windows/ASP site?

 

2. Are there better shopping cart alternative for Windows?

 

3. Would I be much better off keeping the shopping cart on a separate Linux/PHP host where by I have a link from the existing site to the "new" shopping cart and if so, how could I best deal with the "Account" report issue??

 

4. Can you direct me to helpful info?

 

I am thinking if its not too difficult to add OSCommerce the a Windows IIS Server, I would convert the Access DB to mySQL so that the "Account" report could draw both from this existing DB and the new shopping cart DB.

 

I am very interested in suggestions or comments. Thanks in advance.

 

Chris

Posted

Chris:

 

osCommerce is scripted in PHP, and optimized for MySQL. Yes, you could run osCommerce on a Windows server that has PHP/MySQL installed, but in my experience, the server probably wouldn't like it if you were running .asp & .php together. That said, what you are proposing is integrating your current "Windows/ASP/Access DB site" with osC ("I would like to be able to add a shopping cart and somehow have the member's transactions viewable in this same "Account" page. Ideally it would be great if once a transaction was completed, the system automatically populated the existing DB.") This is NOT for the faint of heart and would represent a challenge to even an experienced developer, in my opinion. Since you say you are not a programmer, you are biting off a big chunk.

 

I think you would be better off running the osC on a separate server & linking, but just my opinion. Don't know about your existing site, but you may find that the functionality & features of osC outweigh keeping what you have. Be glad to take a look at your existing site if you care to post a link.

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