[motvbi]

In case you are interested in developing on the Microsoft platform instead of Apache and MySQL, Web Platform installer is the way to go. Makes it a lot easier to install Visual Studio Express, ASP.Net MVC which otherwise is a real pain sometimes.

[luffy]

Not sure about that. The Web Platform installer has introduced a lot of pain to what used to be fairly simple proceedings. It probably my least favorite application to use.

I set up an Windows 2008 R2 instance on EC2 the other day that did not have IIS7 installed. Even launching the WPI on that instance was painful. IE8 is the default browser, and the default settings in IE wouldn't let you launch the application, and for the life of me I couldn't figure out where the security restrictions were.

So then I went and download Chrome which didn't have the security restrictions, and then I was able to download the WPI and run it.

From within the WPI, I selected IIS7 and .NET 4.0. Ninety minutes later + a reboot or two later IIS7 was installed.

[ghurlman]

I also don't agree. If you're just screwing around with something, fine. If you're installing something upon which you intend to develop a professional piece of software, you should go through the true install process. Too many Windows developers are far too ignorant of the platforms upon which they develop their code (in general, not pointed at parent at all).