Tip#27: Did you know... The Microsoft Web Platform Installer RC release supports Windows XP as well as Windows Server 2003
Microsoft's Web Platform Installer has been a cool and simple tool that install's Microsoft's entire Web Platform including IIS (5.1, 6.0 or 7.0), Visual Web Developer 2008 Express Edition, SQL Server 2008 Express Edition and .NET framework. The user interface gives you the flexibility to install entire or specific products.
The Beta release supported Windows Vista RTM, Windows Vista SP1 and Windows Server 2008. The good news is that with the Release Candidate (RC) release Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 are also supported. You can go to the link below and get the download and further details about System requirement:
http://www.microsoft.com/web/channel/products/WebPlatformInstaller.aspx
If you want to learn more about Microsoft Web Platform Installer, please click here.
One other important thing to note is that the Web Platform installer will install IIS 6.0 on Windows Server 2003 and IIS 5.1 on Windows XP Professional and above. Windows XP home is not supported. This also implies that some of the features which are supported only on IIS 7.0 will be available only on platform on which IIS 7.0 is supported.
Don Raman
SDET, IIS Team
