Many developers like to develop, test out and try out features on their local machines. For Drupal on Windows machines, there are a couple of ways to get started. One of the newest is the Micosoft WebMatrix application + the Microsoft Web Platform Installer (WPI). These tools download and install a xIMP (IIS, MySQL and PhP) stack, and then help you set up a MySQL database, configure a local site, and download the Drupal source code. This is intended as a quick overview of the process of installing Drupal 6 or 7 on your local Windows machine, using the Microsoft Web Platform Installer (WPI) and to run Drupal on IIS via the MS WebMatrix application.
It’s also possible to download and configure the necessary components individually; if you don’t want the extra baggage of the WebMatrix application. Another relatively new option is the Acquia Dev Desktop to run Drupal on Windows/Apache.
Using the MS Web Platform Installer
Since Microsoft re-wrote IIS and its PhP stack for IIS, local development on IIS/Windows has become an ttractive option. Microsoft’s WebMatrix and WPI apps make it simpler to get started with Drupal 6 and 7 on your local machine, installing the IIS, database, PhP, URL Rewrite and FastCGI pieces you need as well as Drupal itself. I visited http://microsoft.com/web/drupal/ and clicked on Drupal 6 or 7 to get started.
WPI: Drupal 6
The WPI downloads and installs the Acquia Drupal 6 distribution. A distribution is a pre-packaged group of Drupal plus some contributed modules to help you get started quickly building a site for a specific purpose, like an eCommerce or a publishing site, for example. The Acquia distribution includes many of the most frequently used modules, including Views, CCK and Calendar, though you can enable the ones you like. It also installs the Acquia Network Connector module, which allows you to connect to the Acquia support network if you wish. After clicking on the icon, the installation process went pretty smoothly on my Vista Home Premium setup. It set up MySQL and asked me for information to create a new database as well as the root admin information. Then it installed Drupal 6. There were a couple of snags here, however. For a new developer, these are confusing enough to note:
- My installation included Drupal 6.21, not the most recent version, so straight away I needed to do a core update to apply the most recent security patch. New users may find this confusing; hopefully Microsoft will address this. The modules bundled in the distribution also needed to be updated.
- Post-install, the WPI tells you it’s done and takes you to the Web Matrix app. But you still need to run http://[your-localhost-site-address]/install.php to complete the setup.
- In addition, PhP was not enabled by default for use with the Drupal app. In the WebMatrix interface, I clicked on the settings tab and saw “Use PhP” was unchecked. I also noticed that the PhP version the WPI installed was 5.1. Some modules (as well as Drupal 7) require PhP 5.2 or better. Fortunately, this was easy to remedy via the WebMatrix interface. Clicking on “Change” brought up the option to install and use PhP 5.2 or PhP 5.3. I chose PhP 5.3, and the WPI took care of the update for me.
Once I did these, the site came up and ran smoothly. Post-install, you should run cron to check for additional updates to the installed modules.
WPI: Drupal 7
The Drupal 7 setup on WPI/WebMatrix is sponsored by CommerceGuys, a great Drupal eCommerce shop. Clicking on the icon ran me through a similar process to the 6.x installer, asking for database information and landing me at the WebMatrix screen at the end. As with the Drupal 6 version, you then need to run install.php on your new setup. Once I did that, my 7.2 site was set up and ready for work.
One thing to note about WebMatrix apps: the sites are only “on” if you have the app open in WebMatrix. if you close the WebMatrix app or switch to another site, the current site gets turned off.
That’s it! Once your localhost sandbox is set up, you can download and enable modules as needed.
