Microsoft readies its Web platform 2.0
Summary: Last fall, Microsoft rolled out version 1 of its installer for its Web-platform stack of software. At Mix '09 last week, the company refreshed the installer in the form of a new beta for Web Platform Installer 2.0 and introduced a new gallery of third-party Web apps.
Last fall, Microsoft rolled out version 1 of its installer for its Web-platform stack of software. At Mix '09 last week, the company refreshed the installer in the form of a new beta for Web Platform Installer 2.0 and introduced a new gallery of third-party Web apps.
With the introduction of the "Microsoft Web platform," company officials were hoping to make it clearer and easier as to exactly what kinds of products and technologies might be useful to Web developers. The first iteration of that platform was aimed at Microsoft developers; the updated version, which Microsoft previewed at the Mix conference, is attempting to be more inclusive and appeal to Web developers in general.
The newly launched beta of the Web Platform Installer 2.0 alleviates the need for developers to go to a bunch of different Web sites to download and install various Web-dev products. The 2.0 release also installs the community version of PHP (Version 5.2.9-1). Why? Lauren Cooney, Group Product Manager of Microsoft's Web Platform, explained the decision to include PHP in the Microsoft Web Platform in her latest blog post:
"Many popular applications are built using PHP, and Microsoft wants to ensure that its customers, community members, and developers are able to use these solutions on top of the Microsoft Web Platform – and including PHP inside of the Web PI simplifies this for Web developers."
Other products and technologies included in the beta of the 2.0 Platform Installer:
- Internet Information Services (IIS) 5.1 on Windows XP SP3
- IIS 6.0 on Windows Server 2003 SP2
- IIS 7.0 on Windows Vista SP1 and Windows Server 2008
- SQL Server 2008 Express
- .NET Framework 3.5 SP1
- Visual Web Developer 2008 Express Edition
- Various IIS Extensions
- ASP.NET and features such as ASP.NET MVC
- Silverlight Tools for Visual Studio
As part of the updated platform, Microsoft also is making available a third-party marketplace of Web apps, which includes a number of open-source offerings. Among the apps in the Windows Web Application Gallery: Acquia Drupal, DotNetNuke, WordPress, dasBlog, Gallery, SilverStripe, BlogEngine.NET, SubText, Umbraco, and ScrewTurn Wiki. Ultimately, Microsoft is hoping the Web Application Gallery becomes an app store for open-source services and support, in addition to being a distribution platform.
Web developers: What do you think of Microsoft's updated Web stack -- and especially about the company's decision to include PHP as part of the offerings that can be downloaded by the unified installer?
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Talkback
Greatness!
This is a fantastic tool that MS has released. I will definitely be using it a lot!
RE: Microsoft readies its Web platform 2.0
Easier integration with other MS Products
make management easier. If your company already uses mostly MS
products which is, lets face it, everyone. Then having a stack of easy to
build on web services that integrate with .NET, sharepoint, Visual Studio,
Frontpage, etc, etc. Is a good proposition for many companies.
RE: Microsoft readies its Web platform 2.0
Overblown
RE: Microsoft readies its Web platform 2.0
Get developers using Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Express. However as soon as the app needs to scale, bingo $$$ for SQL Server 2008.
Why would anyone choose a lock-in solution when Linux + MySQL + language of your choice can scale without the lock-in?
No Microsoft lock-in
Are you sure this is a lock-in?
Pay closer attention to http://www.microsoft.com/web/gallery/
You will see in the top 5 apps:
- WordPress that *only* works with MySQL;
- Gallery App works with both MySQL and SQL Server;
- BlogEngine goes beyond and uses by default XML, but you can use MySQL, SQL Server, VistaDB and SQLLite
And as you know, you can also use PHP. Do you agree that there is no lock-in?
Thanks.
RE: Microsoft readies its Web platform 2.0
The progress bar on WPI is rubbish - it looks like the installer is making no progress, or very slow progress, I've been waiting now for 45 minutes and it only just moved from step 2/3 to step 3/3 without updating the installation progress bar from zero progress. The "download" progress bar was a little better.
On my computer I have 64-bit PHP downloaded from:
http://www.blackdot.be/?inc=apache/binaries
With all the trouble I went through to install 64-bit editions of MySQL, PHP etc., the last thing I want is for WPI to muck up my installation. I attempted to use this unified installer to obtain MS' PHP driver for SQL Server as part of my SQL Server Express download/ installation; and promptly cancelled out of the process and deselected the driver when the installer indicated it wanted to download and install PHP 5.2.x as part of its process. No thank you.
By "simplifying" the process, they have really made things DIFFICULT for anyone with a slightly non-standard software installation... Which is probably most software developers.
Failed installation
The failure log is a mass of unnecessary detail - how in the world can I find out why it didn't work?
RE: Microsoft readies its Web platform 2.0
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RE: Microsoft readies its Web platform 2.0
RE: Microsoft readies its Web platform 2.0