How would you make a website without using a web host or paying for a domain name. I know its epensive and Im not planning on doing it, I'm just curious how big companies like Microsoft run their websites.

At the end of the day even if your a big company like Microsoft you still have to register your domain name through a registrar.. the only difference is they would host all their sites on their own servers in their own datacenters. So you could say expensive.. only a few hundred million dollars!

Big companies like MS own their own datacenters and own their own servers. They have a team of system administrators that manage the servers and keep them secure.

They still have to purchase a domain name through a registrar.

Ok so say I have a server thats always connected. I made a website and I have IIS as the server. I purchased a domain. Now how do I make it so when people type in my domain it gets my ip address and connects to my server. (DNS?) Could you give me an example?

Well, you could setup your own DNS server, but that's a lot of work. I would use a service such as zoneedit.com for DNS, point your domain at them and they will then resolve the domain to your server. You will need a static IP for this.

If you don't have a static IP, then you will need the services of noip.com or dyndns.org.

how would you set up your own DNS server?

What OS are you running?

http://www.petri.co.il/install_and_c...dns_server.htm

I have XP Pro. But I'm just talking about any Windows server, like Windows Server 2003.