Users have installed Umbraco literally hundreds of thousands of times in a variety of environments—everywhere from an entry-level Windows XP machine, to multiserver load-balanced sites, and even to Microsoft Windows Azure. In the vast majority of these cases the installations complete successfully and take no more than a few minutes. The first section of this chapter contains the Umbraco quick start instructions for facilitating a successful install. Read it, install Umbraco, and then continue reading for additional considerations.
You can always find the latest released version of Umbraco on the Umbraco CodePlex home at http://umbraco.codeplex.com/ from the Downloads tab. The latest version of Umbraco is also available via Microsoft's Web Platform Installer and Web Application Gallery (http://www.microsoft.com/web/gallery/umbraco/). This chapter offers a detailed overview for installing Umbraco with both the Microsoft Web Platform Installer and directly from the Umbraco installation file downloaded from the Umbraco CodePlex home.