I chucked in the Vanilla idea. Too much research needed, too much effort. I moved to PhpBB. The best thing about Vanilla, WordPress and PhpBB, they are all collections of self contained code and a MySQL database.
Simply removing the files under Inetpub and dropping the database in MySQL and you are back with a fresh IIS ready for other expeariments.
I have PhpBB working on IIS7, Windows 2008 R2, MySQL and PHP. The installation is well documented and the product worked almost first time. I found the install easy (As the PHP and MySQL was already in place from WordPress).
There are two gotchas for us Windows Guys. You will come accross this when you add Mods and Styles. I even found it during the original install.
Firstly, the Zip Binary, contains the files for Windows, Linux and Mac OS. That means all the additional little files the Mac uses to track the file system, are in the Zip file.
When you uncompress the Zip file, it fails as it tries to extract out the Windows format folder name, but it has already extracted a file with the exact same name. We all know a folder and file cannot coexist with the same name. The folder containing Styles, called Styles, also has a file in the root called Styles. The Zip tools extract files first, then fails on the folders. I simply selectively extracted the Zip file and all was good.
This happens in the installs, Mods and original Intstallation.
The next trick is a bit of a mind bender.
When you open php files in Notepad, they look like wrapped around Gibberish. That is because the Linux/MacOs, uses a different line format/end of line character to Windows machines. Luckily the Php interpreter when plugged into IIS can read either. No big issue unless you are doing a mod. The mods normally need you to edit the Php code and place more text on a blank line preceding or after some existing code. Working this out correctly is the difference between breaking your site, or adding new functions.
Back every file up that you edit !!!
With the Mod I added, I was able to find the code I needed to edit. I was able to find the last command and make a new line, adding the new code, then adding a new line after. This leaves me with Php code with the Linux/MacOS carriage return and the Windows one, all mixed up, bit it does work.
Sometimes the install script asks you to places files into folders that do not exist. I just confirmed I had the right path and created the folder. All works.
The last thing that threw me are the install.xml files. Believe it or not, just open then in Internet Explorer. They are a modern readme.txt file. It is the install instructions.
As I find more Linux to Windows weirdness, I will report back.
My Forum can be found at http://122.151.252.72/forum/
