WebMatrix and the Support for WordPress on Windows Platform: Like, Wow!

I have been using WordPress to author my blog for years. It’s one of the most common platform for hosting blogs today. For a while Microsoft SharePoint was pretty much the only noticeable solution offered by Microsoft but a lot of you are probably laughing at me calling SharePoint blog a “noticeable” solution. Since I am an avid proponent of SharePoint, I seriously considered hosting my blog on SharePoint at one point but it took me about 3 seconds to make a decision: Forget it!

A few years ago there was some hokey pokey way to run WordPress on Windows but it was not supported by Microsoft so I never gave it a serious consideration. When I discovered that Microsoft employees (from Program Managers to IT Pro Evangelist) are all switching to WordPress I was hopeful that Microsoft will come up with some way to run WordPress on a Windows operating system. Well, my prayers were answered.

Sometimes it takes Microsoft a little time to get serious about things but throughout its history once Microsoft has decided to get serious about a product or service, watch out. For those of you who are old enough you probably remember Netscape. Now you read about it in the history books. Ever heard of an operating system (OS) called Novell? It used to be pretty much the only show in town but Microsoft totally bulldozed over that OS and ran it out of business. When Microsoft realized that NetBEUI, as fast and good a protocol it is for small networks, is not going to be the protocol of choice on the Internet, it decided to tweak it’s version of TCP/IP. Today Microsoft’s TCP/IP is perhaps the most advanced flavor of TCP/IP in the business and it’s free.

When I first looked into Microsoft’s work with WordPress, I was blown away. They just went nuts and have put so much effort into the support for WordPress. Installing WordPress is now a breeze on Microsoft Windows. The Microsoft Web Platform Installer will download all the prerequisites and then install WebMatrix and WordPress for you without a hitch. And that’s not all. According to Microsoft “Microsoft is teaming up with the WordPress Community to make using WordPress on Windows even easier and Microsoft along with its hosting partners is working to make hosting WordPress on Windows a great choice for everyone.”

Microsoft WebMatrix is now a serious product and in my opinion it is simply amazing. Here is a partial list from Microsoft’s Web site on what WebMatrix does.

• Downloads, installs and configures the latest version of WordPress for you automatically. It provides everything you need including the Web server, MySQL, and PHP.
• Provides a Search Engine Optimization (SEO) report that crawls your local site.
• Gives you specific feedback to ensure your site is easily indexed by all the major search engines.
• Makes it easy to publish your site to a hosted server.
• Includes a Hosting Gallery with great offers for hosting on Windows.
• Supports the standard FTP and Secure FTP protocols as well as Microsoft’s WebDeploy protocol.
• Provides editing capabilities for your SQL Server database allowing you to modify your schema or edit data directly if needed.

And then there is Windows Live Writer that lets you easily create content both online and offline. According to Microsoft “Writer makes it easy to author rich content including seamless integration of photos and videos on WordPress. With Writer, you can preview everything you’re adding to your website, to see how the fonts, spacing, colors, and images will look, before you publish.”

I have installed WordPress for Windows on Windows 8 client and Windows Server 2012. It installs and runs flawlessly. I am running this blog on a Windows Server 2012 along with SharePoint Server 2013. I am planning to move my other blog that I host at a hosting provider to Windows platform. The hosting provider is currently running my blog on a Linux platform that has several limitations.

Feedback to Microsoft

I am thrilled about WebMatrix and the support for WordPress on Windows platform. Thank you, Microsoft!

The work Microsoft has done on providing the support for WordPress on Windows is very impressive. It took a while to get this support but it was well worth it. However, I really don’t understand one thing. Why has Microsoft been so hush-hush about this fantastic product? This should be front page news on Microsoft’s Web site, rather than “also ran.”

I absolutely love the reports in WebMatrix. All I can say is that WebMatrix is a blogger’s dream come true.

I hope to write more on WebMatrix and the support for WordPress on Windows in another blog but I have to say, with everything I have seen so far, WebMatrix is a top notch product. The last time I was impressed by a product so much was when I first used Microsoft OneNote. And that says it all.

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