Web platforms installed in one click…seriously.

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Web platforms installed in one click…seriously.

posted @ Wednesday, March 25, 2009 8:22 PM | 17 Comments

Ok I’ve seen all the announcements and read all the buzz. I know some folks on the team as well and had heard all their raving about their offering. It wasn’t until today where I really realized what was going on. In fact I was thinking about titling this post: WordPress installed and configured in under 5 minutes, but it’s much more than just that.

Introducing: Web Platform Installer 2.

The team at Microsoft has been working hard to make getting your web platform (server and client) up and running quickly and taking any pain out of the process. In one click you can have Visual Studio and Silverlight Tools installed, IIS7 configured, Smooth Streaming enabled, etc.

But it’s much more than just that. You see the team partnered with the community and popular Open Source projects to provide much more than just Microsoft offerings. Earlier today I wanted to check out WordPress templates in more detail and wanted them on my own server. Let me set the stage for you. My server is Windows 2003, IIS6, and has no SQL Server installed. That’s it…a bare web vanilla front end. I fired up WebPI (as it is affectionately known) and look what you see:

Web Platform Installer Applications

That’s right, WordPress as an offering. No, not some hacked “run as .NET” version of WordPress. The real deal from the WordPress project site…Microsoft hosts nothing but a simple manifest describing the project. I selected WordPress and the tool knew what was missing from my environment: MySQL, PHP, FastCGI, etc.

WordPress Install dependencies

I clicked “install” and literally in about less than 10 minutes I was running WordPress. I’m not saying “installed” or downloaded. In fact most of the time of that 10 minutes was from downloading the various bits. When the “You’re finished” message came up, I had a working WordPress site, configured to MySQL, configured with a content database, etc. I had to do nothing to configure my MySQL settings, I had to do nothing to my get PHP running on my site…WebPI did it all for me. It was totally friction free.

It’s not just WordPress either. Drupal, Umbraco, DasBlog, Subtext, ScrewTurn Wiki, etc. And you can put your app there as well. It really is a great resource not only for server components but also for client web platform stuff like I mentioned previously for Visual Studio and Silverlight developer tools.

Great job to this team and you all should definitely check it out. They really did a good job. My server didn’t get screwed up at all and everything “just worked.” I think this installs WordPress faster than WordPress instructions! :-)

tags: silverlight, webpi, web platform installer, php, wordpress, drupal, iis7, fastcgi

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution By license.

Comments

Ben Hayat

3/25/2009 10:12 PM | # re: Web platforms installed in one click…seriously.

Tim, your blogs are getting better and better (more informative) every day.

Thanks!
..Ben
Allen

3/25/2009 11:07 PM | # re: Web platforms installed in one click…seriously.

This might be the coolest thing I have seen in a while. I was looking for an easy way to move from my current wordpress provider and I think this is it!! I look forward to testing this.
Chris Hardy

3/26/2009 12:20 PM | # re: Web platforms installed in one click…seriously.

Hi Tim,

I presume you had MySQL up and running when running this? I'm running into problems getting MySQL properly set up so much so that it can't create the wordpress database because it can't log in. It'd be great to see MySQL integrated into WPI but one step at a time I suppose :)

Great work though,

ChrisNTR
timheuer

3/26/2009 8:38 PM | # re: Web platforms installed in one click…seriously.

Chris -- yes I did have to install MySQL -- I'm checking with them why we can't include that as well, but my guess is some licensing issue probably.
John C. Bland II

3/27/2009 5:57 AM | # re: Web platforms installed in one click…seriously.

That's HOT as heck! About to play with it now. :-)
John C. Bland II

3/27/2009 7:14 AM | # re: Web platforms installed in one click…seriously.

My tweets regarding it:
Web Application Installer -> #wordpress: Started at 8:07 am. Let's see how long until complete.

Web Application Installer -> #wordpress: Ended at 8:14 AM. Might have been earlier. I was on another window. Not bad @ all.

Web Application Installer -> #wordpress: Sorry...that was incorrect. That was the download time. Install took 1.5 minutes (includes typing).

That's AMAZING Tim! What a great product!
Ben Hayat

3/27/2009 7:30 AM | # re: Web platforms installed in one click…seriously.

An unrelated note (too lazy to send email to Tim ;-))

Tim, Today Telerik as one of the major vendors of SL controls, announced their latest (2009 Q1 series) for SL3. I think they are the first company that have a complete set of controls ported to SL3 this quick. I thought I let you know in case there are people who want to start SL3 development, they have Telerik controls to use too.
..Ben
Dave Lane

3/31/2009 12:10 PM | # re: Web platforms installed in one click…seriously.

It's lovely to see all the breathless praise for this initiative by MS, but I fail to see how this is a good thing. This sounds to me just like another Fantastico fiasco. Getting these applications installed on Windows might help MS stem the tide of defections to proper open source platforms, but in the meantime, it seems to me that it'll create a raft of unmaintainable websites... These people click the button to install Drupal, for instance... and then what? How do they apply security updates? How do they manage their customisations?

Because the users of these web tools, installed in this way, typically haven't got a clue of how these packages were installed or what they consist of, their insight in how to *maintain* their new sites is pretty much 0. Granting power without offering wisdom is dangerous.

To me, this isn't cause for celebration. This is a superficial, overly simplistic solution which glosses over the responsibilities of site developers to understand their technologies at least enough to maintain them. Give me an SSH session into a Linux box with version control any day. (Oh, and if you want a proper package management system, try Linux)

Dave (full time commercial open source Drupal developer)
timheuer

3/31/2009 12:16 PM | # re: Web platforms installed in one click…seriously.

Dave -- that's a fair assessment, but also fair to point out that if you prefer SSH into a linux box directly, you're not the target user :-). For a one-click option to initially configure all of these options, this is a great jumptstart. For most new users to wordpress/drupal/etc. -- telling them to go to 4 different places and download different packages and oh yeah, here's where you configure everything can be cumbersome. Getting jumpstarted by packaging those initial steps into one is helpful to some...not all...but some.
Dave Lane

3/31/2009 5:28 PM | # re: Web platforms installed in one click…seriously.

Thanks for your response. I do agree that it can be useful, even for software experts, to have an efficient installation mechanism, and I'm pleased to see that MS have finally introduced it to Windows[R].

Of course, to be fair, Tim, that same sort of "jumpstart" can just as easily be achieved with:
Administer->Synaptic->*scroll down to Drupal*, *click on Install button*, *enter password* in any Debian-derived Linux... (a similar mechanism will be available for any other modern Linux)

I don't see any buzz-worthy Microsoft innovation here... looks like Windows has just finally achieving a limited sort of parity with inherent Linux capabilities.
Dave Lane

3/31/2009 5:32 PM | # re: Web platforms installed in one click…seriously.

I should also note, that unlike the MS feature (correct me if I'm wrong), the Linux package management also supports scripted (i.e. automated) upgrades to newer versions of individual packages without user intervention, which also means scripted major version upgrades. That would be analogous to being able to do remote in situ upgrades from Windows Vista to Windows 7, including *all* the software and user configurations on the system. To my knowledge, that's not possible, is it?
timheuer

3/31/2009 8:16 PM | # re: Web platforms installed in one click…seriously.

Dave -- again, Synaptic, etc. aren't for the users who would be using this...but fair point. Especially on Windows, this is an invaluable tool...an environment where MySQL, PHP, etc. aren't familiar, having to do all the steps to install it can feel daunting. WebPI removes that stress and gets you going.

I've passed on your feedback regarding updates as I think it's valid...we'll see what that team has in mind.

As a Drupal dev, isn't this a good thing though if more people can be exposed to Drupal and start using it with ease?
Dave Lane

3/31/2009 10:46 PM | # re: Web platforms installed in one click…seriously.

Yes, I suppose it is a good thing... My company actually offers a "Drupal Adoption Service" which consists of rescuing poorly implemented Drupal sites on behalf of their owners from inexperienced developers who're in over their heads.

At substantial cost (because it requires substantial time), we re-implement their sites using Drupal best practice, and development best practice like version control, compliance with open web standards, cross-browser testing (mostly to compensate for MS browser brokenness), etc. We do this to make them maintainable, and to make ongoing development a tractable problem.

That said, adopting other people's horrible hash jobs of Drupal implementation is pretty unsavoury work, but it's lucrative, and there's clearly a substantial market requirement even without MS's help... But I'd rather just be building them properly to start with. And that requires Linux. :)
timheuer

4/1/2009 9:00 AM | # re: Web platforms installed in one click…seriously.

Dave I could imagine we could all make good money in web rescues! Your last statement confuses me as I'm not sure if that is just a jab/preference or an opinion of fact as a Drupal developer. Are you saying that Drupal can only be successful on Linux, and if so, why? If it can see the database, runs in PHP, why would Drupal care what the underlying platform host is?
Dave Lane

4/1/2009 12:08 PM | # re: Web platforms installed in one click…seriously.

Yeah, sorry, I couldn't resist the jab. Actually, I have to say, after watching your employer over the past 15 years in this business, I (like most of my open source colleagues) have developed a deep distrust and, well, disgust, for it.

I know MS employs some very good, smart people (I used to live in Seattle, and know quite a few 'softies), and you seem to be one of them, but as a corporation, you'll have to show many years of good faith to live down your past (and continuing) unethical behaviour and monopoly abuse and earn some trust and good will by your actions, rather than by throwing money at spin and PR firms to gloss over indiscretions.

Microsoft's current "open source love" campaign reeks of "embrace, extend, and extinguish", which has been MS's clear modus operandi for at least the past 15 years.

I prefer to use a pure open source stack, as I see it to be a win in every possible way. My company and I help other web developers to use Linux, and, luckily, most of them do.
timheuer

4/1/2009 12:18 PM | # re: Web platforms installed in one click…seriously.

EEE!!!!! Run fast! :-) -- seriously though, yes there are a bunch of us trying to change MSFT internally as well as mend relationships externally with the Open Source community. Having some OSI approved licenses this past year was a big win for us and allows us to to a lot more in that space. In the team I work on, we release our control framework as Open Source and a lot of our other teams are doing that as well (our latest web framework iteration is Open Source). Times are changing, but I also understand the historical impact we have to overcome. My new role in Silverlight doesn't lend itself well to me attending OSCON or things like that anymore as I have in the past to try to bring more of a human face of developers to MSFT...but we still have people (I still consider myself one of them) who are constantly striving for more change/openness in the organization.

We won't always win, but we're making progress. Thanks for continuing the conversation Dave in an open manner...appreciate the honesty and feedback. If you haven't seen it, http://port25.technet.com is the online community place for our Open Source team, led by Sam Ramji.
Dave Lane

4/2/2009 12:55 PM | # re: Web platforms installed in one click…seriously.

To get an idea why I and nearly every open source supporter I know has strong negative feelings towards Microsoft, I encourage you all to watch your colleague in this talk at the Linux.conf.au conference in Tasmania earlier this year.

Lawrence Crumpton of Microsoft did a talk intended to be funny... "Did Hell Freeze Over?" It wasn't, really. He was speaking to a remarkably generous audience of august open source developers (he didn't seem to realise who they were at the time - I'll be happy to provide some pedigrees if you like), who were remarkably polite when calling him to account. I actually feel sorry for the guy - like a lamb to the slaughter... his most used line: "I don't deny...".

Link to the talk:
fossbazaar.org/.../lawrence-crumpton-did-hell-f...

The developers in the audience could've been much much harsher given the treatment some of them have had over the years at the hands of Microsoft... They were admirably restrained - but they're more than smart enough to realise that Lawrence was just cannon fodder.