Software Development | Ruby on Rails
Installing Instant Rails 2.0

A couple of years ago the easiest way to get Ruby on Rails on a Windows machine was to download InstantRails. InstantRails 2.0 came out about that time and is, unfortunately, still the most recent version.  A more recent competitor is RubyStack. I've already got InstantRails 2.0 installed so I'll ignore RubyStack for the moment.

The first step is to download InstantRails. I installed it at C:\InstantRails-2.0\ - the folder name can't contain spaces.  If you want help doing this then check out:

Stopping IIS Admin

If you want to use Apache you must stop the IIS Admin service which is hogging port 80. You do this from Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Services.

Once you've got InstantRails installed then start it by clicking on the exe. I find it handy to have a short cut to the exe on the desk top.  Apache won't start because inetinfo.exe is hogging port 80. You don't need Apache in the short term so just leave it alone.  

From InstantRails open a Ruby Console Window (I. > Rails Applications > Ruby Console Window) and check the version of Ruby (1.8.6) and Rails (2.0.2) provided by InstantRails. 

prompt>ruby -v
prompt>rails -v

Rails 3.0 and Ruby 1.9 are coming out soon but they're not here yet. Ruby 1.8.6 is ok but update to the latest version of Rails (2.3.5). 

prompt>gem update --system
prompt>gem update rails