Tried to install latest version of Web Platform Installer but now empty

Question

I am running Windows server 2012 and I wanted to upgrade to a later version of PHP. My version of the Web Platform Installer was old and only showed up to PHP 5.2 and I wanted to install PHP 8. So following this process, I downloaded and installed the latest version of Web Platform Installer, v 5.1. However, now when I search for php, I see no results at all. I don't understand why this is or how to recover.

Answer 1

According to https://www.microsoft.com/web/downloads/platform.aspx:

The Microsoft Web Platform Installer (WebPI) was retired on December 31, 2022. For more information please see this blog post: https://blogs.iis.net/iisteam/web-platform-installer-end-of-support-feed