Posted by Scott on December 1, 2008
Microsoft has just released the Web Platform Installer (RC1). What is the Web Platform Installer you ask? From Microsoft:
“The Web Platform Installer (Web PI) is a simple tool that installs Microsoft’s entire Web Platform, including IIS7, Visual Web Developer 2008 Express Edition, SQL Server 2008 Express Edition and the .NET Framework. Using the Web Platform Installer’s user interface, you can choose to install either specific products or the entire Microsoft Web Platform onto your computer. The Web PI also helps keep your products up to date by always offering the latest additions to the Web Platform.”
The Web PI certainly looks promising as a quick ramp-up when setting up a development environment (or even a one-off server environment).
Posted by Scott on October 13, 2008
Today was my first experience with PowerShell, and I have to say I’m impressed. PowerShell truly does appear to be a command prompt for the .NET generation. While it can be agravating at times, I can see PowerShell quickly becoming a “can’t do without” tool in my arsenal.
Resources:
Posted by Scott on April 26, 2008
Recently, I had the opportunity to install Windows Server 2008 x64 on my MacBook Pro. With the recent updates for BootCamp (drivers) and a little bit of perseverance, I am now up and running.
- Install Server 2008 (be sure to select Full Installation to install the GUI interface). If you have any trouble booting from the installation DVD, specifically being stuck at the “Select CD-ROM Boot Type:”, you can follow the instructions here to create a bootable DVD.
- Install the latest x64 BootCamp drivers (version 2.0) that were released for the Mac Pros. (Note: The link for the drivers points to a torrent at The Pirate Bay as Apple does not provide downloads of the original driver media.
- Install the updated BootCamp drivers (version 2.1). You must first install the drivers from the previous step before the driver update can be applied.
- On my MacBook Pro, the Atheros 5800X wireless driver was not installing properly. A working x64 driver can be found here.
- To fully enable wireless access (being able to join a wireless network, etc.), the “Wireless LAN Service” feature needs to be enabled.
- If you plan on using your server installation as more of a desktop installation, you can view the excellent guide at win2008workstation.com.
The only true “gotchas” with the installation of Server 2008 on the MacBook Pro are the installation of the wireless drivers and the enabling of the “Wireless LAN Service” feature to allow for enumeration of wireless networks.
If anyone has any more to add, sound off in the comments!