I was itching to try and get a simple .aspx website that I’d created in Expression Web 3 hosted on to the Windows Azure Platform. It was remarkably easy and the only gotchas were making sure the web page files were .aspx and not .html and a couple of copy/paste and _vti folder issues I managed to get around.

I’m not totally sure why .html web pages would not work, but if you have an existing simple website built, just rename the .html web pages to .aspx – that worked for me.

Like all my stuff, I try to keep the steps simple and by no means is this meant to be a super-deep technical drill-down.

So, follow this step-by-step tutorial and host a simple website on Windows Azure Platform.

To get ready to work on the tutorial, obtain your own Azure Invitation Code under the no-cost Community Technology Preview (CTP) program. Visit http://www.microsoft.com/windowsazure/developers/  and click on Get Your Account .

Receiving your Azure CTP Invitation Code via email takes approximately 5-7 business days.

Here is the document:   http://www.msdev.com/Directory/Description.aspx?eventId=1588

Oh, and here is the simple site – forgive my crummy web design skills: http://tbsite09.cloudapp.net