How do you work on MS-based websites?

Great resource, I have been lurking here for many years :).

It's been a while since I asked a newbie-question like this, but we have been building complex websites in LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP) for several years now and we have a client that needs us to work inside an existing MS setup: Microsoft-IIS/5.0 on Windows 2000, with Frontpage extensions and MS Access as a database.

When working in LAMP, we work in Telnet/SSH, we can see what is going on with the server through the command line, and some of our staff use FTP programs to move files up and down to the remote web-servers from our local testing servers. I know we can access the web server easily enough through FTP, and Frontpage (if we must!), but I feel as though I am working blind - how do we do things like setup or connect to a database?

We have a working licensed version of Windows 2000 server running in our office here, but the process of setting up a working web server, let alone database connections, seems like a long learning curve.

Apart from RTFM (which I am doing - sigh), are there any quick hints as to how you MS-shops out there operate :)?

Cheers,

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