What's New in Beta 2?
The Web Platform Installer (Web PI) enables you to easily download and install the latest development technologies from Microsoft. It's now easier than even to get up and running with a web development environment.
In beta 1.0 of the Web Platform Installer, you had the option of downloading and installing one or more of the following technologies to your desktop:
- IIS (Internet Information Server)
- Visual Web Developer 2008 Express Edition
- SQL Server 2008 Express Edition
- .Net Framework
- ASP.Net MVC
- Visual Studio Tools for Silverlight
Beta 2 of the Web PI offers a couple of additional things including:
- Popular Web Apps
- A few Extras and Goodies
First the Goodies
Did you know that you could host PHP-based applications on your IIS web server? Well you can. The Web PI now includes the option to install the community version of PHP (PHP 5.2.9) on IIS.
Both IIS 6 and IIS7 have supported PHP for a little while now, but this is the first time it's been included with the Web Platform Installer.
You can also download the latest release of ASP.NET MVC 1.0.
Installing Popular Web Apps
Also now included with the Web PI is an Application Deployment tool that lets you download and install a number of community web applications, including some very popular web content management systems.
We told you that Microsoft was supporting web content management systems like Drupal, WordPress and DotNetNuke. But now's there are even more available, including:
Learning Opportunities
Webinar
Aug
16
How Mixed Media Modeling Can Unlock Significant Value
Stop wasting money and start gleaning insights
Conference
Aug
17
Digital Experience Summit - Q3 2022
How Great Organizations Empower Customer Experience Teams
Webinar
Aug
23
Curating the customer experience through integrated data insights
Identify the analytics capablities that drive value
Webinar
Aug
24
2022 State of Internal Communications: Trends, Challenges and more
A Simpplr Research Webinar
- Umbraco 4.0
- SilverStripe 2.3.1
and several new blogging platforms:
- BlogEngine.NET
- DasBlog
- Subtext
Windows Application Gallery
The Windows Web Application Gallery is a new gallery where you can find and download new applications and components for developing web applications. New solutions can be submitted -- as long as they are free -- to the gallery exposing a worldwide audience to promote your wares.
Windows Application Gallery
This is the gallery where you will find all the content management and blogging platforms mentioned above, along with a few more goodies.
A Big Step in the Right Direction
It's great to see Microsoft opening their doors to non-Microsoft solutions and offering an easy way for developers to get up and running quickly with a Microsoft development environment.
Head over and download Beta 2 of the Web Platform Installer. Then take a look at the Web Application Gallery and see what interests you.
