A new open source project available free of charge from Microsoft CodePlex is designed to simplify the management of multiple PHP installations running on version 7.0 of Internet Information Services.

Essentially, PHP Manager for IIS offers a graphical user interface (GUI) for enabling customers to not only set up but also administer with multiple PHP installations on IIS 7 servers.

Put together by Ruslan Yakushev, a program manager on the Microsoft IIS team in charge of FastCGI and PHP support, PHP Manager for IIS 7 is in Beta development stage and it is designed to integrate seamlessly with IIS 7.0 since it is an extension for the product.

“It can be used to: register PHP with IIS; run multiple PHP versions side by side; check PHP runtime configuration and environment (output of phpinfo() function); configure various PHP settings; enable or disable PHP extensions; remotely manage PHP configuration in php.ini fille,” Yakushev stated.

PHP Manager for IIS is available for download under the Microsoft Public License (Ms-PL), which is an open source license, from Microsoft CodePlex.

There are two flavors of the extension offered to customers, each tailored to specific versions of IIS 7.0, namely 32-bit (x86) and 64-bit (x64).

Deploying PHP Manager for IIS 7 could not be simpler. Customers only need to grab the variant of the PHP Manager for IIS 7 Beta best suited to their environments.

“Download and run the installer, which will install and register PHP Manager’s binaries with IIS. Note that only IIS versions 7.0 and above are supported. After installation is complete, launch the IIS Manager and find the “PHP Manager” feature,” Yakushev said.

“When opened, the “PHP Manager” feature provides a configuration overview for the PHP installation that is registered with IIS and is currently active.

“If no PHP is registered with IIS, then the only action that can be performed is the registration of a new PHP version,” Yakushev added.