The past two weeks had been a bit frustrating. Apart from falling ill and spending few days in bed, we haven't been able to set up Drupal on IIS.

Problems installing Drupal on IIS

The problem is that, when Drupal's installer runs, I get this error message:

"user warning: You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near ') ORDER BY fit DESC LIMIT 0, 1' at line 1 query: SELECT * FROM menu_router WHERE path IN () ORDER BY fit DESC LIMIT 0, 1 in C:\inetpub\wwwroot\dupal\drupal\includes\menu.inc on line 315."

The database is created and all Drupal tables are in it. However when I accessed the URL again to install, (http://example.com/install.php), it stopped at the fourth step 'Install site' without any error message, but a page title 'Home' in the main content area of Drupal. This is exactly the same message I got when I installed Drupal manually.

Someone posted a similar issue to d.o and I read people's solutions and tried them but didn't work. I posted this issue to iis.net forum and some kind soul responded and suggested some solutions, but they didn't work for me.

Then the hosting company wiped the box by accident (ouch) so we'll never know what was wrong. I'll try installing it again and see how it goes this time.

Progress

Since different organisations have different preferences over payment gateway, I didn't like the idea of developing PayPal-only solution even after I decided Simple Paypal Framework was the way to go. I kept researching and considered using Nedjo Rogers' Payment API module as a basis. He kindly offered me the co-maintainer privilege, as it needed some work including upgrading to D6, but he also introduced me to PG API, which didn't come under my radar earlier. After I had a look at the module, as well as its sub module Simplepay module, I decided to use this as the basis and make the fundraising module as a sub module of PG API. There are couple of issues with the way URL works with the module, but it can be worked around.

But I've mapped a workflow, produced some wireframes and finally started developing the module. I'm running short of time since I've already spent some time setting up stuff on the server e.g. creating users, installing MySQL, a text editor that can handle Unix LF (and now I have to do it all over again). But I'll try and get as many features developed as possible before the the end of this month.