I am a firm believer in trying to keep things simpler where ever possible (but not for the sake of it) In years gone by I have heard many admins lament about the complexities of deploying IIS to work alongside third party plugins such as PHP. I can remember numerous occasions where I have wrestled with the config and “best practice”.
I am however glad to say finally Microsoft have taken notice of this and produced a very simple and effective deployment toolkit.
The Microsoft Web Platform Installer (now in version 3.0)
I have recently deployed an IIS7.0 server that required PHP and MySQL using this tool and I am very happy with the results!
I know generally any system admin will avoid “wizards” as it were but in this instance it is time well saved!