Sitecore 5.3 Installation and Configuration Differences from Prior Sitecore 5 Versions

Valid for Sitecore 5.3.2, 5.3.1

Sitecore 5.3 contains a few important differences from previous versions which can affect installation:

The new setup executable provides simplified automated configuration (the .zip distributive must still specify a default database configuration providing alternate configuration files for the others).
Sitecore 5.2 and 5.3 require ASP.NET 2.0.
The “dist” folder representing the Sitecore document root has been renamed to “WebSite”.
The default location for the supporting file system has been moved to a Data folder sibling to the WebSite directory.
Some configuration details have been moved out of web.config (WebSite/web.config) into files under /App_Config.