Microsoft Releases Web Platform Installer

Microsoft has delivered Version 1.0 of its Web Platform Installer, a free download manager that enables developers to install the Microsoft Web Platform or at least part of it.

Following up on the delivery of a release candidate version in November, Microsoft made Web PI 1.0 available on 20th January. The Web PI is a single installer to obtain and keep up-to-date the software needed to build and run a complete Web solution on the Microsoft Web platform.

The installer enables users to obtain Microsoft Web platform components quickly and easily, choose components to install for complete or custom Web platform deployments, and install the latest versions of Microsoft Web Platform products, components, extensions and tools.

Indeed, Microsoft officials said Web PI simplifies the installation of Microsoft’s developer technologies, from .NET Framework 3.5 to ASP.NET to Silverlight and more, for building Web applications.

Web PI also includes an X M L-based product manifest that is updated automatically to keep users abreast of what products and technologies are available.

In a blog post from November regarding the Web PI release candidate, Scott Hanselman, a principal program manager at Microsoft, said:

Web PI’s got a number of cool things, but one subtle one you might take note of is the Web Deployment Tool Beta (MSDeploy) that I mentioned before. This tool makes it very easy to package up all the configuration schmutz of your application and (re)deploy it elsewhere. As such, it supports synchronizing your sites and applications across server farms, which was a huge problem for me when I was in banking. It integrates nicely with IIS [Internet Information Services] Manager too.

Also of note is the inclusion of ASP.NET MVC Beta as an option, as well as URL Scan 3.1 and IIS 7.0 manager, which lets you manage IIS7 from non-IIS7 machines like, ahem, XP machines. Basically all the things that were hard to find, now, less so.

Microsoft Web PI runs on Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2008, and supports IIS 5.0, 6.0 and 7.0; SQL Server 2008 Express; .NET Framework 3.5 SP1; and Visual Web Developer 2008 Express SP1. It also features ASP.NET, complete and custom installation options.