Customised 404 error page

[Mac Hine]

I have a website I'm upgrading to Xara. The existing website has a customised 404 page, for which my old website program saved all files as .html

I've had a play about and ftp-ed to change the file suffix to 404.htm - the same as Xara uses. However, I noticed that for whatever reason, my webhost doesn't seem to recognise the 404.htm as it gets sent to the webhost's own 404 default page.

Does anyone know if protocol states if has to be .html for a 404 page (although that seems unlikely to me), or is it maybe my webhost – I use 1and1.

If it does have to be .html, when I get to u/l the entire site, will Xara see it as an error and maybe overwrite the .html for the .htm?

[jamesd]

You would have to edit the .htaccess file and change it to 404.htm there

[Mac Hine]

You would have to edit the .htaccess file and change it to 404.htm there

Thanks jamesd,
I obviously did that originally to get it to work with .html! Two minutes to change - all done and working.
I've got a memory like a whatisname...