The Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS) team, announced today the release of Windows Cache Extension 1.0 for PHP, a PHP performance optimizer/accelerator created to increase the speed of PHP applications running on Windows and Windows Server.

This is a production-ready release that is provided under an open source BSD license, with the source code hosted and maintained here, and the documentation hosted on php.net.

You can find more details on this release on IIS team Product Unit Manager Mai-lan Tomsen Bukovec’s blog.

WinCache extension is a significant open source contribution from Microsoft to the PHP on Windows community. The extension code is hosted and maintained on PHP Extensions Community Library (PECL) and is available for everyone to view, branch, compile, and contribute to.

The IIS team also invites the PHP development community to join it in development of this caching extension for PHP on Windows. There have already been some contributions from the community whileWinCache was in the pre-release mode, and IIS team is looking forward to having others join this new PHP on Windows caching project.

Also, in time for this release, an independent PHP company – Ibuildings – has conducted a benchmark test with the WinCache RTW bits and published the results.

The release of this production-ready PHP accelerator for Windows is an important step towards making the Windows operating system an even better platform for hosting PHP applications.

WinCache extension significantly improves performance of PHP applications and lowers CPU load on the server. This, together with the fact that no application code changes are necessary to take advantage of the caching, makes WinCache a must have extension when running PHP on Windows.

More information about the WinCache extension for PHP can be found as follows:

• The PECL documentation on WinCache
• The PHP on Windows feature team blogs (Kanwal, Ruslan, and Don)
• The WinCache community forum
• The IIS.NET documentation on WinCache
• The WinCache on PECL source code, licensed under BSD
• How to file bugs on WinCache in PECL

Source: Port 25

I needed a flash response to a recent personal project demand that required PHP and MySQL. As such, I needed to start coding ASAP a flash install of both platforms was in order. Here’s a quick step-by-step guide to get PHP and MySQL running on your computer:

1. Go to the official PHP Internet Information Services Site http://php.iis.net/
2. Click the big button to install PHP using Microsoft Web Application Gallery. If you don’t have it already installed, it will be installed first.
3. Follow the onscreen instructions.
4. Go to Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Internet Information Services.
5. Open “Default Web Site”
6. Double click on “Server Components > Handler Mappings”
7. Confirm if *.php extension is now handled by PHP FastCGI.

Here are some images of the entire process:

You’re done! Add a new Application to IIS and you’re ready to go!

Now, in order to install MySQL databse onto your system, you first need to download the MySQL Community Edition, (the freely downloadable version) from the MySQL Developer downloads webpage. At the time of this writing, the current version is 5.1 and 5.4 is available as a beta version. For instance, if you have a 64bit OS, install the following: mysql-5.1.40-winx64.msi. For 32bit OS choose mysql-5.1.40-winx64.msi.

Follow the on screen instructions. When asked, select standard installation and a root password at your discretion.

When the installation is finished, goto Start –> Programs –> MySQL > MySQL Server 5.1 > MySQL Command Line Client (mysql). mysql is a simple SQL shell. It supports interactive and non-interactive use. When used interactively, query results are presented in an ASCII-table format. When used non-interactively (for example, as a filter), the result is presented in tab-separated format. The output format can be changed using command options.

Now, let’s setup our first database. We can list all currently installed databases by inputting the following command:

show databases \g

Notice the “\g” keyword. This is like the “GO” command in SQL Server. It orders the engine to execute the previous command. After the command is executed you’ll notice a database called mysql. This is a system database, and you shouldn’t mess around with it. For instance you can check all system tables in mysql database with the following command:

show tables in mysql \g

You’ll also notice a database named “test”. This is a sample database that you can use for testing purposes.

When creating your database we must assign the required user permissions for us to access it from our data client. So I’ll create a new user called JohnDoe with a custom password by inputting the following command:

create user ‘JohnDoe’ identified as ‘password’ \g

Now for the database. There’s a useful command that gives you the SQL syntax for database creation. If you execute the following:

show create database test\g

… it will show the necessary SQL syntax to create the test database. We’ll create a database called “MyDatabase”:

create database MyDatabase \g

And now, all there is to do is give Mr JohnDoe a green card on our database, by giving it full access permissions:

grant all on table MyDatabase.* to JohnDoe identified by ‘password’ \g

If all goes well, you should receive

Query OK, 0 rows affected (0,00 sec)

Later, in case you want to delete your database, this is the command:

drop database ‘MyDatabase’ \g

And that’s it. You’re all set to start working with Php and MySql. Remember that this is the tip of the iceberg. For more information check the documentation, manuals and, why not, some books.

Enjoy!

Internet Explorer’s enhanced Security Configuration is a windows add-on that adds extra security functionality to Internet Explorer by limiting web access and browsing. You can see it as a recommendation or best practice of server web browsing security configurations. I’ve been asked a few times how to disable Internet Explorer’s Enhanced Security Configuration that comes enabled out of the box in Windows Server 2003, and this weekend it happened again. So I thought of putting out a small and simple article that shows how to disable this feature, although this should be well thought.

What happens when you open Internet Explorer on a Enhanced Security-enabled machine and request an URL is this message box showing up:

There are two ways to uninstall IE’s Enhanced Security: for Administrators, or for users. This tutorial will show how to remove the entire feature:

First, click the Start button, go to Control Panel and click Add/Remove Programs

Click Add/Remove Windows Components. This will load a windows feature list. Please wait a bit till the window opens.

Search for Internet Explorer Enhanced Security Configuration in the list and uncheck it. Click details if you wish to choose Administrators or Users.

Click Next to end apply your changes, and that’s it.

The next time you open Internet Explorer, you’ll see a page saying:

Caution: Internet Explorer Enhanced Security Configuration is not enabled

Internet Explorer Enhanced Security Configuration is an option that is provided in Windows Server 2003 operating systems and above. You can use it to quickly enhance Internet Explorer security settings for all users.

When you enable Internet Explorer Enhanced Security Configuration, it sets Internet Explorer security settings to limit how users browse Internet and intranet Web sites. This reduces the exposure of your server to Web sites that might pose a security risk. For more information, including the complete list of changes that are implemented by Internet Explorer Enhanced Security Configuration, see Internet Explorer Enhanced Security Configuration overview.