Introduction

This is the first installment of a series of blog post called the WIMPinator Chronicles that describe how to setup a PHP development environment for Windows 7 and IIS 7.5.

In this part we are taking advantage of a very cool tool called the Web Platform Installer.  With a few clicks you will be able to install and configure IIS7, PHP, MySQL and a Wordpress blog on your local Windows 7 computer.

Let’s get started

IIS is not enabled on a clean Windows 7 machine. There are two options to install and configure IIS. You can do it manually by using the Add/Remove Windows Features wizard or you can use the Web Platform installer. I am going to use the Web Platform Installer in this post.

Figure 1: IIS is not installed by default on Windows 7

Here are some detailed step-by-step instructions that will get a Wordpress blog running locally on Windows 7 using IIS 7.5

First Google for “Web Platform Installer”.

Figure 2: Google Web Platform Installer

Choose the Microsoft link: http://www.microsoft.com/web/Downloads/platform.aspx

 

Figure 3: Go do the Web Platform Installer download link

Click the download link to start downloading the Web Platform Installer tool.

Figure 4: Web Platform Installer download link

After the download start wpilauncher.exe.

Figure 5: Run wpilauncher.exe

The Web Platform Installer provides a user interface to select individual packages for your specific web application needs.

Figure 6: WPI Web Platform Installer

If you click on the option link in the lower left corner  (Figure: 6), then you will get even more advanced/developer options to select. You can use this option to access for example the Windows Azure tools.

Figure 7: WPI Advanced options

The easiest way to get all the packages for PHP/MySQL development on IIS 7.5 is to select a web application like Wordpress from the Web Applications tab. The WPI will automatically include all packages that Wordpress needs in order to need to run on IIS.

Figure 8: Only select WordPress

Once you click the Install button, the WPI is showing the list of packages that is going to  be installed.

At this point in time the Web Platform Installer installs the following versions:

• PHP 5.2.12 Non-Thread Safe VC6 binaries
• MySQL 5.1 Windows Essentials
• Wordpress 2.9.1

Figure 9: Included packages page 1

Figure 10: Included packages page 2

After you accept the license agreements for all the chosen packages the installation starts and asks you for the MySQL root password.

Figure 11: MySQL root password

Figure 12: Installation progress 1 – Installing the MySQL .NET connector

Figure 13: Installation progress 2 – Downloading PHP 5.2.12

Figure 14: Installation progress 1 – Installing PHP 5.2.12

Figure 15: Installation progress 2 – Installing PHP 5.2.12

Once all the Wordpress pre-requisites are installed the wizard continues with the configuration of the Wordpress web application and IIS. The installer will create the IIS application and the virtual directory.

Figure 16: Configuring IIS for Wordpress

The next dialog asks for the Wordpress configuration parameters.

Figure 17: Wordpress configuration parameters

The installer finally completes, hopefully with success and displays a summary of the installed packages. Use the Launch Wordpress link to start your new Wordpress application instance.

Figure 18: Web Platform Installer installation summary

Specify the name of your blog and your email address.

Figure 19: Wordpress welcome page

Click the install button. Next, you should see the Success! page and see your automatically generated admin password. Take a note of this password.

Figure 20: Wordpress install success page with admin password

Click the Log In button and use the admin password that Wordpress created for you.

Figure 21: First log in into Wordpress

Now you should see the admin dashboard and follow the red link to change your admin password.

Figure 22. Admin dash board and link to change your password

Go to your blogs front page. Done

Figure 23: Front page of new Wordpress blog

Ausblick

It is very easy to setup a Wordpress blog on Windows 7 using the Web Platform Installer. In the next episode of the WIMPinator Chronicles I am going to look into what version of PHP got installed and how to add additional features and extensions to the core set that got deployed by Web Platform Installer.