Hi,

On March 18th, 2009, Microsoft launched the Windows Web Application Gallery – http://www.microsoft.com/web/gallery. We are very excited about the response we’ve received so far. Enthusiastic users can now get community applications up and running on Windows with a few straightforward steps. Application developers are seeing an entirely new class of users working with their projects and expanding the reach and capabilities of their communities.

We would like to invite your community to participate in this venture. b2evolution is a strong blogging platform with a very full and extensible offering. We think that b2evolution would be a great addition to the other blogging platforms already in the Gallery, such as WordPress, dasBlog and others.

We are here to offer you support for preparing your application for the Gallery. This is a straightforward process where we work with you to create a pair of XML files to include with your distribution which give the Web Platform Installer the information needed to install your application on the IIS Web Server. Also, if there are any issues with running your application on Windows and IIS, we will work with you to figure out a resolution.

There is further documentation on the Gallery available at http://learn.iis.net/page.aspx/619/windows-web-application-gallery/. If the Gallery sounds interesting and you want to get started, please feel free to contact me directly at stjacobs at microsoft.com. I will follow up in a couple of days and we all look forward to seeing you in our Gallery!

-Jake

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Steve Jacobson (JAKE)
Sr. Program Manager (IIS)
mailto:stjacobs@microsoft.com
425.538.4138
MSN / Live – JakeFromMSFT@live.com
Google / Twitter / Skype – JakeFromMSFT

{Excerpt from http://learn.iis.net/page.aspx/606/introducing-the-windows-web-application-gallery/ }

The Windows Web Application Gallery makes it easy to explore, discover and install popular community ASP.Net and PHP applications on Windows. Users can browse and view applications for different types of Web sites, ranging from photo galleries to blogs to ecommerce sites.

The Web Application Gallery integrates with the Web Platform Installer 2.0, so that when a user clicks “Install” for an application, the Web Platform Installer 2.0 launches with context set on the user’s selection. This powerful combination of application discovery and simplified installation makes it easier than ever for community-based applications to run on Windows.

The Web Application Gallery also provides a way for developers to reach millions of Windows users. When an application is accepted by the Web Application Gallery, the application is added to the Web Application Gallery ATOM feed. The ATOM feed is consumed by the Web Application Gallery itself, Web Platform Installer 2.0, IIS7 Manager, and participating Hosting Control Panels.