ServerName in this should be, logically, www.myweb2.com you have it as the default domain so this virtual host will never be accessable as is.

DNS, add the virtual host domain names to the dns server, as authoritive entries, so that your local domain name service will recognise that it is the only name server with these names and start listening for them in dns requests.
If the virtual host's names are not registered, then there is no way to access them by name.
you have a dns server, you can add them, then they are registered.

yeah Jaqui, i corrected the mistake on the "www.myweb2.com". and now proceeded to the dns server (which is on a different machine) - the w2k3 machine to add the vhosts 1,2, and 3. but still cannot get the http://myweb2.com, and http://myweb3.com via the browser.
i just want you to confirm if i did the configuration fine:
i went to dns managemant console and on the forward lookup zone i right clicked and added new zones (myweb1.com, myweb2.com, and myweb3.com) and then assigned them the ip address of the apache server

Sounds right to me, but I have never used any MS server software so I can't really say for sure.

dns does take some time before the names replicate out and start working.

you can browse to the ipnumber/[vhost folder] and get the right page displayed?
if not, then your system isn't serving the content from the vhost folder, which could be a permissions issue, the user and group for them has to be the same as apache is using.
the permissions for active webserver folders are usually 644, owner has read and write permission, everyone else can read only.

yes when i browse to these vhost1 folder and vhost2 folder and double click the myweb2 and myweb3 html file i can see them in the browser. again regarding the folder permission, presently they are 755, i did chang them to 644 as you said but got 'permission denied' error when i clicked the html files. so have to revert back to 755. more help please

Hey guys.. i am a newbie in apache...
but still... when u use name based hosting on a local machine... I think u got to refer it in /etc/hosts file.. isnt it??

Like.. if u create a tag in httpd.conf like this:

<VirtualHost mysite.example.com:80>
DocumentRoot /var/www/mysite
ServerName mysite.example.com
# and many other entries here .....
</VirtualHost>

then... what i do is edit /etc/hosts file and enter :

<ip of the machine> mysite.example.com mysite

in a new line... and restart httpd service (since conf. has changed)... Then the sitemysite.example.com works fine... well.., only on local machine...

If the site should be accessed everywhere on the network.., i think the same process should be done in server...

Wt u say?? Is this right... or am i completely wrong??
Plz reply.. that way.. i could also learn!!

Ok?
Vimal.