Deploy ASP.NET VB App with Forms Auth

I wrote a very simple application in .NET and managed to host it using IIS 7. To deploy it i just moved my project files to the server and it worked after some tinkering with the application pools.

I have now added a login page (Forms Auth) and tryed to deploy it the same way. While it works on my localhost (Visual Studio 2010) the same method of getting it on the server is a no go. Do i have to install a DB on the sever? if so how? (I have zero experience with SQL Server Express, I dont even know how to managed DB's ect)

My question is what is the best / easiest way to deploy my .NET apps that use Forms Auth? Also as a bonus question what is the easiest way to manage users for forms auth. On my local host i just use WAT.

I do have complete control over my sever (Amazon EC2 Windows 2008 Server IIS7 and SQL Server Express) so any and all options would be useful although i am extremely new to the windows dev environment so please write your responses under the assumption that开发者_如何学C i am a complete newb. While i would like a answer to this specific problem any articles that could help me on general IIS administration and .NET would be greatly appreciated as well.

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If you're using forms authentication then you can hold your login details in the web.config or you can use SQL Server with the Membership Provider. Best practise really is to use SQL, as it's more powerful and flexible. All logins can be managed by WAT if you want, or you can write your own code to manage them using the Membership library.

Take a read through these series of articles for more info:

Examining ASP.NET's Membership, Roles, and Profile

Or for info on using the web.config file:

Forms authentication in web.config