Well this might be in the wrong place or I might have no clue what im talking about but I heard something. Is it possible to host like a .exe server such as a macromedia multiuser server on a database such as MySQL or any other databases? I have a friend that said he did it but I think he is lying. Thanks in advance!

Iwouldnt say your friend was lying...just misinformed. He probalby got hosted on a server that offered MySQL. Forums like Invision (this one) require a database to work, it is possible to run a foum using PERL and a file system but it eats up a lot of disk space and they are more of anovelty than a practical system. The MySQL is a database server, it merely manipulates, stores and retrieves data, I doesn't understand HTML or HTTP at all only PHP or its own query language, so you can't take an SQL server and make a web site with one, it is used with a webserver. Hope that helps.

You are partially wrong:

- you don't need to use perl to write a forum using flat files. you can use php+flat files or perl+mysql. I wrote myself a php CMS using flatfile database.

- storing data in mysql or files makes no difference. mysql needs a hd too, or did you think the data stored in sql dbs just float around?

there are many possibillyties..
.I think it's just best to install a database on your server.

I'm a noob too in that...

MYsql server meant for storing things like text data, not programs? Correct me if im wrong, but i don't thing that it would work.

Actually a database is a server except that it only serves data and not files, a web server will produce document that are based on HTML, A mail server would of course serve e-mail all servers no matter what they do use executable programs and these programs may or may not be exe but could be com or a java or many other programming languages, basically a database like MySQL works with a web server which through PHP or some other language will pass commands to the database which will follow the commands and send a result even if it is nothing more than an error, therefore to set up a system like the one that the host here is running on you will have at least two servers a web server to communicate with browsers and also a database server like MySQL to handle data manipulation, it is possible to have many different servers on one machine as in the case of a local machine like I am on that runs Windows XP and Apache web server, a MySQL database, and I also have an FTP server, and a mailserver by File Zilla. So you might want to tell your friend that he just might be misinformed about his terms