Potential survey for Drupal use on Windows hosts

Hi Steve,

Yes! I've been wanting to do this for a while now. I have a SurveyMonkey account and would be happy to help set this up.

Your questions are good. Here are some I would add:

• What are the biggest challenges you have running Drupal on Windows?
• What are the things you like best about running Drupal on Windows?

For your current and past sites please indicate:
- Do you use drush? use regularly, use it sometimes, never used it but I'd like to, what's that?
- Do you use PowerShell? use regularly, use it sometimes, never used it but I'd like to, what's that?
- Do you use Windows scheduler? use regularly, use it sometimes, never used it but I'd like to, what's that?
- Do you use any other scripting or automation tools? Please specify (______________________________)

• How do you run cron jobs? Poor Man's cron, Windows scheduler, Acquia subscription, manually, other (_____________)

IIS users, how would you rate the ease/quality of the following:
- documentation and tutorials (1-5)
- finding support
- overall security
- performance

Have you done a multi-site Drupal installation on Windows? (Y/N/not yet but planning to)

If you use an authentication module to integrate with Active Directory, which one do you use?
ldap integration

Why do you use Drupal on Windows?
- client/organization requirement
- preference
- other (__________________)

Do you currently use Drupal on Windows for
- prototyping and development
- production site(s)

What is the one thing that could be done to improve using Drupal on Windows?

Steve I think this is a great idea and would love to collaborate on this and cross-promote. Would you care to team up on this?

Tuesday sounds good!

Adding responses to this question:
If you use an authentication module or method to integrate with Active Directory, which one do you use?
- ldap integration
- Webserver authentication
- third party add-on (_____________)
- custom code
- something else (______________)

Ok, so work and home ambushed me and I can't estimate time :)
What type of survey monkey account do you have? Unlimited or limited to 1000 + $/response over? If it's unlimited we could run it for a week and in addition to our blogs maybe post an announcement on the front page of Drupal.org?

I will try and get a unified question set posted today/tomorrow for final review(unless someone beats me to it).

Yes, there's a definite bias against Microsoft/IIS amongst Drupal users, and of course for some good reasons, and often some not so good reasons.

It's good to see Mark active here trying to support those who are using Drupal on Microsoft platforms.

I recently had an experience of trying to help a Microsoft-attached organization adopt Drupal and they eventually gave up. And likely for both good and not so good reasons.

My learning experience from that is that the OS technology differences are just part of the story - a much bigger barrier to entry is cultural. An IT department that is used to Microsoft technology has a big cultural shift when switching to Drupal that is more than just php, or even open source - it's also about web development process. In particular, this shop was used to the old 'waterfall' process - trying to nail down all the requirements before any work was done and then just pushing those requirements down, wasting opportunities and spending too much time implementing pointless changes. Obviously, this kind of problem is not directly a Microsoft issue, but is one of the issues that will arise when trying to adopt Drupal in a Microsoft environment.