JBoss is the easiest application server to install. You can have a server up and running in less than minute. Download, unzip and run - the install process has always been just that simple. However, in 4.0.3 we've added another installation option - a GUI installer.

The first question has to be: why? You can't get any simpler than the current process, so why add the mouse clicks? There are a couple of good reasons. The first reason is to make the customization of JBoss even simpler. When you download JBoss, you are given three standard configurations: minimal, default and all. The standard configurations work well, but you almost always want to customize the set of services before deployment. It's not hard, but it does require a good bit of homework to know what to do. With the GUI installer, you can click to select the services you want and have the server set up exactly like you want it from the start.

If you don't want to pick and choose, you can still choose one of the standard install images. In fact, you'll even see some knew options in the installer. We now have a standard EJB3 install image available for EJB3 development. You can expect to see more custom install sets in the future to allow you to more easily put the face you want onto your server.

Finally, we're adding post installation tasks to the server. In the 4.0.3RC1 installer, we've started with security. The installer can secure the JBoss management interfaces, providing a more secure out of the box experience. You can expect to see more work done in this area in the future.

We have a demo of the new installer if you want to see how it works. Otherwise, just download it and give it a run. If an executable JAR isn't easy enough, try the web start version. One click will download and run the installer. You'll have a full custom install in just a few minutes.