Initially released on January 21, 2009, Microsoft Web Platform Installer (Web PI) is a simple, free tool that automates the installation of Microsoft's entire Web Platform including:

• IIS
  Internet Information Services
  Internet Information Services – formerly called Internet Information Server – is a web server application and set of feature extension modules created by Microsoft for use with Microsoft Windows. It is the most used web server after Apache HTTP Server. IIS 7.5 supports HTTP, HTTPS,...
  
  
• Visual Web Developer 2008 Express Edition
• Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Express Edition
• .NET Framework
  .NET Framework
  The .NET Framework is a software framework that runs primarily on Microsoft Windows. It includes a large library and supports several programming languages which allows language interoperability...
  
  
• Silverlight Tools for Visual Studio
• PHP
  PHP
  PHP is a general-purpose server-side scripting language originally designed for web development to produce dynamic web pages. For this purpose, PHP code is embedded into the HTML source document and interpreted by a web server with a PHP processor module, which generates the web page document...
  
  
• and more.

The 2.0 version of the software, released September 24, 2009, adds the ability to automate installation of certain third-party software, such as :

• WordPress
  WordPress
  WordPress is a free and open source blogging tool and publishing platform powered by PHP and MySQL. It is often customized into a content management system . It has many features including a plug-in architecture and a template system. WordPress is used by over 14.7% of Alexa Internet's "top 1...
  
  
• Umbraco
  Umbraco
  Umbraco is an open source content management system platform for publishing content on the World Wide Web and intranets. It is written in C# and deployed on Microsoft based infrastructure...
  
  
• Drupal
  Drupal
  Drupal is a free and open-source content management system and content management framework written in PHP and distributed under the GNU General Public License. It is used as a back-end system for at least 1.5% of all websites worldwide ranging from personal blogs to corporate, political, and...
  
  
• Joomla!
• Orchard
  Orchard
  An orchard is an intentional planting of trees or shrubs that is maintained for food production. Orchards comprise fruit or nut-producing trees which are grown for commercial production. Orchards are also sometimes a feature of large gardens, where they serve an aesthetic as well as a productive...
  
  
• and more. The list of third-party software which can be installed through the Web Platform Installer grows and holds currently more than 50 applications. For a full list see the gallery.

Additionally, Web PI 2.0's options are populated dynamically at runtime from Microsoft's servers, allowing installation options to be updated without the need to download newer versions of the Web PI software.

On July 7, 2010, Microsoft announced Web PI 3 which includes WebMatrix Beta, a new set of integrated tools for web development. WebMatrix is available only through Web PI 3. Web PI 3 comes with additional tools for web development including IIS Developer Express, SQL Server Compact

SQL Server Compact

Microsoft SQL Server Compact is a compact relational database produced by Microsoft for applications that run on mobile devices and desktops. Prior to the introduction of the desktop platform, it was known as SQL Server for Windows CE and SQL Server Mobile Edition...

 and several popular open source web applications like DotNetNuke

DotNetNuke

DotNetNuke is an open source web content management system based on Microsoft .NET technology.DotNetNuke was written in VB.NET, though the developer has shifted to C# since version 6.0. It is distributed under both a Community Edition BSD-style license and commercial proprietary licenses as the...

, Umbraco, WordPress and Joomla.

Supported operating systems include Windows 7, Windows Vista

Windows Vista

Windows Vista is an operating system released in several variations developed by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops, tablet PCs, and media center PCs...

 SP1+, Windows XP

Windows XP

Windows XP is an operating system produced by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops and media centers. First released to computer manufacturers on August 24, 2001, it is the second most popular version of Windows, based on installed user base...

 SP3+, Windows Server 2003

Windows Server 2003

Windows Server 2003 is a server operating system produced by Microsoft, introduced on 24 April 2003. An updated version, Windows Server 2003 R2, was released to manufacturing on 6 December 2005...

 SP2+, Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 R2.

Supported architectures include both x86 and 64-bit.

The Web PI can be downloaded from the Microsoft Web Platform website at www.microsoft.com/web.

See also

• LAMP (software bundle)
  LAMP (software bundle)
  LAMP is an acronym for a solution stack of free, open source software, referring to the first letters of Linux , Apache HTTP Server, MySQL and PHP , principal components to build a viable general purpose web server.The GNU project is advocating people to use the term "GLAMP" since what is known as...
  
  - free and open source stack to build a general-purpose web server

External links

• Microsoft Web Platform Installer
• Introduction to WebPI and WebPI Command-Line Utility
• Install and configure web development tools using Web PI 3
• WebMatrix with Web PI 3