BANGALORE, INDIA: Developing a web application on Windows using its tools is a lot simpler than we think it could be. .NET, Visual Studio etc. all help in increasing the productivity of a developer and put you on the right track quickly. However, it sometimes is difficult to remember what all is required to be installed to get productive quickly. This is where these two new tools from Microsoft can really help you out.

You can choose to install the complete set, a set that lets you develop on ASP.NET or a custom set. The custom set is most useful as it has a number of choices that you can obviously customize and takes care of non-ASP.NET developers too.

The first tab here called "New" shows you a list of new and cutting edge modules, SDKs or tools that you can use. In the current release, you have a number of IIS 7 extensions, SilverLight tools for VS and the latest beta of ASP.NET MVC release. The next tab called "Web Server" allows you to select and install the components of IIS7 that you need for a particular type of development and there are a number of templates – like Default, ASP.NET Development, PHP Development - that are included. Choosing a template (say PHP Development) changes the set of modules you need installed (for instance CGI/FastCGI support for PHP). The next tab – Tools and Framework – gets you the latest version of .NET (3.5sp1), SQL Express 2008, Visual Web Developer Express 2008, drivers for PHP, and some more. The final two tabs let you select all or view updates for any of the installed stuff.

Once you have selected the items you wish to install, you can proceed and review the list. When you proceed, you will be given the license terms to agree to and then it downloads the required software and installs and configures it for you automatically. So getting to a productive state is very easy on a new computer – and remember that all the Microsoft software it downloads is completely free.