I have a solution that contains a couple of web parts that I am deploying to my server and am trying to understand the scoping options. I have both multiple site collections and multiple sites on each. When running stsadm to deploy the solution (stsadm -o deploysolution), there is a URL option (-url) that allows me to specify the target web. Likewise, using stsadm to activate a feature (stsadm -o activatefeature) also allows the specification of a URL for the target site. I'd like to better understand the difference between these two URLs. In the case of a solution containing only web parts, will these two URLs always be the same. (IE, what is the scoping options of web parts?) Is there a good doc explaining all of this?

I just got an answer to this question from Cliff Green, via email. Cliff is a Senior Consultant at Microsoft who specializes in SharePoint... The url for the solution is the web application where the solution should be deployed. The url for a feature is the site collection (in your case) or site where the feature should be activated. You probably know this, but a web application can have multiple site collections and a site collection multiple sites. In some instances the generated url can be the same ( a site collection at the root of the web application), but they can also be different. In the case of web parts you would deploy the solution at the web application level and then activate the web part feature on each site collection.