SQL Server is now supported by phpBB!

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Our team is really excited to announce the new release of phpBB 3.0.7-PL1 by the phpBB community that supports SQL Server, and one can download it from the Web Application Gallery for a very easy install!!

But let’s step back for a moment and provide some background. Microsoft’s Interoperability team has been working with a few PHP projects to support SQL Server using our driver, phpBB was one of them. Although phpBB already had some support for SQL Server / Access, our 1.1 release driver offered support for UTF-8, Multiple Active Recordsets (MARS) and SQL Azure. Support for all of these capabilities became available with the release of the SQL Server Driver for PHP 1.1 in Oct 2009 - so Microsoft created a patch for phpBB to support SQL Server, tested it heavily, and submitted the patch into the project early this year. However, phpBB 3.0.7 had just been released so this patch was scheduled for the 3.0.8 release.

Coincidentally, Microsoft organized the Jump In! Camp in Zurich and a few of the key phpBB project developers (Nils Adermann, Henry Sudhof and Chris Smith) were invited to attend. At the camp, they had the opportunity to test a custom build with the patch on Windows with IIS, WinCache (an open source project under the BSD license submitted by Microsoft into PECL), SQL Server Driver for PHP 1.1, and SQL Server.

The phpBB team also worked with the Web Platform Installer team to prepare the new release to be available in the Web Application Gallery. You can read all about it on the web platform team's announcement.

Elated with the fantastic progress made at the camp, Nils/Henry/Chris decided to publish a new release that now supports several databases including SQL Server!! Read what they have to say on their development forum and their blog.

If you want to test drive how SQL Server works with phpbb, you can download phpBB for Windows/IIS/SQL Server and check it out for yourself.

This is another great example of Microsoft and the PHP community working well together to improve the interoperability of their projects with Windows, IIS, SQL Server, Windows Azure & SQL Azure and provide more value to customers. It feels great to be a part of this effort and the opportunity to work with some really cool guys like Nils, Henry and Chris, we look forward to working with them in the future!

Ashay Chaudhary
Program Manager, SQL Server Driver for PHP