Microsoft have came up with a new product idea and this time its geared on supporting Open Source running on IIS server. A user will only need to click the installer and voila IIS is configured running most of the popular Open Source application softwares including Graffiti, DotNetNuke, WordPress, Drupal, OSCommerce. These PHP based applications are commonly found running in Linux platform with Apache, and MySQL combinations. This web installer simplify the trivial task of configuring IIS with PHP support using fastcgi, it is now documented that fastcgi configuration running on IIS server is almost the same as the server running on Apache performance wise.

The usual difficulty in configuring IIS with MySQL and PHP are the nature of configuring these individual applications before you can successfuly run perfect a web server script mapping is sometimes a pain in the neck. Coupled it with Domain Controller, and DNS server installation and configuration for your server to be integrated with your active directory but that’s another story.

According to Microsoft with just a few simple clicks, Web AI (Web Application Installer) will check your machine for the necessary pre-requisites, download these applications from their source location in the community, walk you through basic configuration items and then install them on your computer. The system requirements are:

Supported Operating Systems are:

• Windows Vista RTM
• Windows Vista SP1
• Windows Server 2008
• You must have administrator privileges on your computer to run Web Platform Installer Beta
• .NET 2.0 Framework
• Supported Architectures: x86 and 64-bit

If you are interested in finding out and trying these Web Application Installer go ahead and try it. But I prefer configuring IIS with fastcgi the old school method and no, I’m not using it in my production server, I usually use it for development and intranet deployment.

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