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.

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.

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.

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.