Microsoft Web Application Installer - Open Source Web Apps Delivered and Installed
Remember last week when I mentioned the Microsoft Web Platform Installer? It's an bootstrapper that gets you setup for free web development, all in a single application. It'll setup IIS7, get you Visual Studio, SQL Server, .NET, etc. Cool. And there was much rejoicing (except XP folks, sorry.)
Well, the team just released the Web Application Installer (Beta). Get it? First Platform, now Applications.
What does it do? Well, how about a screenshot.
_2.png "Microsoft Web Application Installer (Beta)")
Yes, that's Drupal in there. And PHPBB. And WordPress. Sweet.
I've talked to the team, and they've promised that DasBlog is next in line to get in that list o' applications. It's a *ahem* gem of an application. Well, it's a great start. Open Source, baby, baby.
The installer knows about prerequisites, although the app can't currently install them for you. However, it'll point you to all the correct places to get what you need.
%20(2)_2.png "Microsoft Web Application Installer (Beta) (2)")
When you've satisfied the prerequisites, it'll setup IIS for you, prompt you for application-specific configuration and you're up and running. It'll also validate the configuration so you'll know ahead of time if the app will work.
%20(3)_2.png "Microsoft Web Application Installer (Beta) (3)")
There are people at Microsoft do care about Open Source. I'm telling you guys and gals, we're turning this ship around. Slowly, but we are.
Oh, by the way, the Web Application Installer uses and ships ICSharpCode.SharpZipLib, which is GPL'ed Open Source. It has an exception, however:
"..gives you permission to link this library with independent modules to produce an executable, regardless of the license terms of these independent modules, and to copy and distribute the resulting executable under terms of your choice, provided that you also meet, for each linked independent module, the terms and conditions of the license of that module. An independent module is a module which is not derived from or based on this library"
Which is legal Open Source license speak for "link on, brother, link on." There you go, Microsoft ships an app with a mostly GPL'ed library. Madness. Cats and Dogs, living together, mass hysteria!
Go check them out:
They require Vista or Windows Server, x86 or x64 and you'll need admin rights. Enjoy.
About Scott
Scott Hanselman is a former professor, former Chief Architect in finance, now speaker, consultant, father, diabetic, and Microsoft employee. He is a failed stand-up comic, a cornrower, and a book author.
About Newsletter
fuzzyman
I think it is. All you need is to compress your application files and then upload it but should we observe any standard in order to make our application compatible with Microsoft Application Installer?
The configuration and extensibility of IIS 7 is much different than for IIS 6, which I'm betting these installers take advantage of.
All I can say is thank you to Scott, et al, for doing what they do.
j/k
It should also be easy for third parties, like Telerik, to make extensions for both Installers. I should be able to install the whole development stack, including 3rd party tools, from a file share. That really would take the process of setting up a new development station and make it fast and simple.
I just managed to make a custom webinstaller that includes SQL Server Express with permissions and everything. This project looks great for Vista Deployment. I am definately going to try and migrate my setup to this!
Some of the packages are tar'd and System.IO.Compression does not support that yet. I was lucky enough to be on the team that wrote this and it was a great deal of fun and extremely flexible to add additonal apps.
Enjoy
Comments are closed.