Questions[microsoft-web-platform](server)

I have a server that's behind a Windows 2012 firewall without Internet access. I need to install PHP on it, and would prefer to use the Web Platform Installer if possible. I can't find any recent information on how to do this, save for this article:

http://www.ca.com/us/support/ca-support-online/product-content/knowledgebase-articles/tec1193892.aspx

When I run the first part, I am able to generate a dump file; however, the file is only 1k and is not readable. As the WebPICMD runs I can see the list being output the screen very quickly, but for some reason it doesn't make it to the file.. C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Web Platform Installer>WebPICMD.exe /List /ListOption:All>C:\temp\dump.txt

Any feedback on this?

How do I disable the message (via registry/script)

Do you want to get started with Microsoft Web Platform to stay connected with latest Web Platform Components?

It seems like a trivial one click dismissal but I have cloud formation Windows 2012 R2 server builds in AWS which are spun up and killed off regularly.

It's driving me nuts when I log onto a fresh box and load the IIS panel. I tried procmon to see what changes when I click no-don't-bug-me-about-this-again but haven't managed to find the setting.

Can the web platform installer install to a remote server (e.g. shared hosting environment)?

I'm trying to install SQL Server Express 2008 and Reporting Services on a x64 Windows 7 Machine for development purposes.

I've installed SQL Server 2008 Express with the Microsoft Web Platform Installer

I had to manually enable the SQL Server Browser in the Sql Server Configuration Manager and tried to enable the SQL Server Agent but that simply doesn't work. Keeps throwing an RPC error: "The remote procedure call failed. [0x800706be]". The start mode is set to Disabled and I cannot change it.

Even though I selected the SQL Server Express with advanced services in the web platform installer I could not find any reference to SQL Server Reporting Services so I used the SQL Server Installation Center x64 application to "upgrade" to SQL Server Express 2008 with advanced services... this installed many things but still I couldn't find any reference to SQL Server Reporting Services other than an application called: "Reporting Services Configuration Manager"

This opens up a dialog called "Reporting Services Configuration Connection" which is asking for a server name (shows the name of my machine) and a Find button. When I click the find button I get: "Unable to connect to the Reporting Server WMI provider. Details: Invalid Namespace".

I found some references on the web to solve this problem, but they refer to a directory: "%ProgamFiles%\Microsoft SQL Server\MSRS10.SQL2008\Reporting Services\" which does not exist anywhere on my system. (The directories for SQL Server are there, but there is no Reporting Services directory anywhere).

What am I doing wrong here? Wasn't the web platform installer supposed to handle all this?

Thnx for any advice.

PS: Most google results refer to 2005 vs 2008 problems, but I never had 2005 installed on this system, it's a newly installed development machine.

Has any one used Microsoft Web Platform? What is the installation like? Does it require IIS to go down or the server restarted? How smooth is the update process? Any gotchas that I should be worried about putting this on a production server? What were thinking is running PHP for WordPress.