Apart from the variety of product and feature announcements made at Mix (don’t forget you can download the sessions here), the “one product to rule them all” is the Web PI 2.0 (I hope that the codename for this project was Magnum…)

It’s about this time of year – with all the new widgets and features in front of me – that I get a bit keyboard-twitchy and think about doing some coding demos. But then guys like MikeT and Tim Heuer are just too quick for my amateur skillz…

So instead, let’s take a look at Web PI. You can install from http://www.microsoft.com/web/downloads- selecting Microsoft Web Platform Installer 2.0 Beta.

A small download and a couple of UAC nags later and we’re presented with “What’s New?” and the available download options covering:

Platform – web server and extensions, frameworks and runtimes, database and tools. So this is anything from IIS7 and it’s variety of modules (such as IIS Media Services), to ASP.NET MVC, to PHP, to SQL Server, to Silverlight 3 tools.

Web Applications – the web application gallery has a bunch of useful applications that can be installed automatically – from BlogEngine.NET to Wordpress and Drupal.

As you select options, the installer notices what you’ve already got, and will inform of conflicts – so for instance I had the old RC of ASP.NET MVC which prevented me from installing 1.0.

And then off we go. A quick and simple way to get the bits and pieces you need to get going. Now just Expression Blend, and the plethora of CodePlex projects to install.

If you want to get moving with the web platform, I highly recommend an install.