Microsoft's Web Platform finally comes together

There are dozens of little tools and services you need to download from Microsoft in order to actually start developing Web applications on your own. Finally, the company has decided to make them all available through a single form.

For over two years now, one of the most frequent requests heard at Web development conferences -- especially Microsoft's annual MIX in Las Vegas -- is for the company to create an easier, one-stop shop for the distribution of the basic components one needs to start developing Web pages using Microsoft-supported technologies. Late in September, the company took its first steps in that direction by deploying a simple installer that pre-selects the myriad of tools and services necessary for someone to start building ASP.NET, classic Active Server Pages (IIS), or even PHP applications in and for Windows.

In the interest of moving developers forward, the installer only works in Windows Vista, although the items it makes available aren't necessarily restricted to Vista. In BetaNews tests, we were only able to get the installer to work on a physical Vista SP1-based production system, after several failed attempts with a similar virtual machine. Since this is only an installer, we're not certain what true barriers there may be to installing these components other than artificial ones -- certainly PHP pre-dates Vista by several years.

Although the current beta isn't the most intuitive installer we've ever seen, we found in the Web Server tab its most useful feature: Recommendations. Here, you select what type of development work you're trying to do, and the installer will respond by selecting just the services you need to fulfill the job. Impressively, your choices include PHP as well as Microsoft's ASP and ASP.NET, and that shows the company is simply paying attention to reality: Every Web developer for any genre needs PHP skills.

If you select PHP Developer, the installer pre-selects CGI, services for HTTP static content and directory browsing, HTTP Logging, and the IIS Management Console. For ASP.NET Developer, the installer swaps CGI for the ASP.NET Framework and .NET Extensibility. Metabases and management consoles are available for IIS 6, but are not pre-selected by default -- and that, we feel, is a good thing. Here again, one wonders why the installer has no trouble supporting old Microsoft middleware, though it only runs on Vista.

Why, in the Tools and Framework tab, the installer doesn't pre-select .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 when the system doesn't have it installed yet, is a mystery. You'd think that would be one of the basic elements. Also, there's some selections you'd think Microsoft would have included here. Silverlight is one of them -- that's right, it's actually missing. Technically, you don't need it to deploy ASP.NET applications, but I had expected it to have been an option.

Also missing is an entry for the company's ASP.NET MVC (Model View Controller) system, which is Microsoft's new way of modeling distributed applications. That's missing on purpose, it turns out, because a fully-assembled public beta has not been readily available. That problem was solved just last Thursday, with the release of the first beta of a full MVC framework, which requires ASP.NET 3.5.

The download and installation process is reminiscent of performing manual updates through Microsoft Update; the installer downloads each selected item manually and installs it. What's different is that some of these processes can run in parallel; for instance, I noticed that the installer was downloading the SQL Server Driver for PHP, Windows Installer 4.5 (an option I selected manually), and .NET 3.5 SP1 simultaneously. If Windows Update were to start working this way, it could save a little time.

The process was not exactly as smooth as silk: for instance, although the install routines for each of the selected components were supposed to remain silent, the one for the SQL Server driver for PHP insisted that I tell it what its default installation directory should be. Well, I didn't happen to know the answer to that one off-hand, so I just clicked on Cancel. Luckily that didn't cancel everything, and after about 15 minutes, everything else in the ASP.NET and PHP sets combined was installed and activated -- except for .NET 3.5 SP1, which required a reboot.