Web Platform Installer Released!

If you’ve been to any presentations I’ve done recently you’ve seen how much I love talking about this tool. Very simply the Web Platform Installer (WebPI) is a tool that installs IIS7, extensions, tools, runtimes and applications in a easy to use manner.

This includes PHP, SQL Express and Visual Web Developer Express. Its never been easier to get the Microsoft Web Platform installed – just a few simple clicks.

Go to https://www.microsoft.com/web/ and click on the download the web platform link, and this will download the 80K file that kicks off the installer and from there you can pick and choose what you want to install:

But the by far coolest part of this is the ability to install popular Open Source applications such as Silverstripe and the WebPI takes care of ANY dependancies such as installing PHP and other web server requirements.

If you have an application you’d like to include in the Windows Web Application Gallery just follow these simple Windows Web Application Gallery Principles.

There are also a bunch of extensions also made available including:

o    Advanced Logging 1.0 Beta
o    Application Request Routing 2.0 RC
o    Database Manager 1.0 RTW
o    Dynamic IP Restriction 1.0 Beta
o    Media Services 3.0 RTW (with Smooth Streaming)
o    URL Rewrite 2.0 RC1
o    FastCGI for PHP support on IIS6
o    IIS7 Administration Pack
o    FTP Publishing Service 7.5
o    WebDav 7.5
o    Web Deployment Tool 1.0 RTW
o    IIS SEO Toolkit Beta 2

Sure you can install all these yourself, but the WebPI just makes it easier!

- jorke