RailsInstaller 2 for Windows released

After over 70,000 downloads of RailsInstaller for Windows, it is with great excitement we have released RailsInstaller 2 for Windows. You may download it from the RailsInstaller website.

What’s special about RailsInstaller 2 for Windows? I’m glad you asked.

Exciting feature number one is the most requested addition of all time: Ruby 1.9.2. Many thanks to Luis Lavena and the Ruby/Windows community for all the hard work ensuring that many gems function on Windows with Ruby 1.9.

Exciting feature number two is a small improvement we like to call: Rails 3.1. Here at the World Headquarters of RailsInstaller, we’ve been waiting and waiting for the Rails 3.1 final release. Like Dr Nic, my favorite feature of Rails 3.1 is ActiveRecord’s prepared statement support. SQLite3, PostgreSQL and SQL Server now use prepared statements to yield “2x faster for simple queries and 10x faster for complex ones!”

Exciting feature number three is for you if you are using SQL Server on Windows: the latest ActiveRecord SQL Server Adapter, TinyTDS and FreeTDS are now included! TinyTDS is a project from Ken Collins that allows you to use FreeTDS to connect to Microsoft SQL Server databases. That is, everything you need to create Rails applications for your existing SQL Server database is included within RailsInstaller 2 for Windows!

Alternately you can continue using SQLite3 which continues to be packaged with RailsInstaller and is still the default adapter for new Rails 3.1 applications.

Slightly more minor but still very exciting improvements:

• Bundler is bundled (pun intended) as well and is now version 1.0.18.
• Git has also been upgraded to version 1.7.6.

Keep in mind that the goal of RailsInstaller remains making it as simple as possible for someone to get started with Ruby and Rails. If you have any ideas on how we can make things even easier, please let us know.

RailsInstaller 2 for Windows is for using and for sharing with others. Let your friends, family and colleagues bask in the goodness that is Ruby! You know in your heart that you would love nothing more than your own grandmother hacking with Ruby!!!