Using .pl Instead Of .cgi For Script Files
Question
I'm on a Windows server, so I need to use .pl instead of .cgi extensions on the script file names. How do I configure Movable Type for this?
Answer
We highly recommend that, rather than using .pl extensions, you configure Windows to use .cgi for Perl scripts instead.
Some plugins have configuration URLs which use .cgi extensions, so these links will not work if the server is not configured to recognize the file extension as a valid Perl script. Changing these plugin scripts to use .pl isn't a good idea, as they are typically stored in the plugins folder. When Movable Type sees a file in that folder with a .pl extension, it will attempt to load it along with other plugin files, and this can cause problems.
Keeping the above in mind, if you still must use .pl for the default Movable Type files, follow these steps:
First, rename all of the mt*.cgi files to use .pl, except for mt-config.cgi as this file is not actually an executable script. Movable Type cannot find it unless it is named with a .cgi extension.
Then, update mt-config.cgi to recognize the new script names:
# AdminScript mt.pl
# CommentScript mt-comments.pl
# TrackbackScript mt-tb.pl
# SearchScript mt-search.pl
# XMLRPCScript mt-xmlrpc.pl
# ViewScript mt-view.pl
Remember to uncomment these settings1, then save mt-config.cgi and upload it back to your server in ASCII mode.
1 To uncomment a setting means to remove the # from the beginning of the line where it appears.
