I have this environment and it is easy once you know the tricks. I can't
give you a full step by step, but I will give you the main bulletpoints to
start your research.
Before we go into it, I want to mention running the app on a Linux VM
(which of course we all do). Getting RoR installed and running on a Linux
server is the easiest of all installations. The trickiest part is getting
shared networking between your host OS (windows 7) and the VM guest.
If you have any knowledge or experience with VirtualBox, get Ubuntu Server
for it, RVM, Ruby, and then follow the endless online tutorials. Once your
VM server is up and running, then you can hit the IP or URL from the
browser of your windows 7.
Installing RoR on windows or Mac is a long and tedious process. The first
time I did it took me close to 3 days, now knowing all I know, it still
takes me at least 3-4 hours.
These are the things you will need:
Apache Server
MySQL (or whatever DB you're using. For mysql see guide below).
Ruby installed with RubyInstaller http://rubyinstaller.org/
The ruby Development Kit from RubyInstaller.
-- I always get the 32 bit versions because they seem to cause less
headaches.
Configure the MySQL connector and libmysql.dll Use this guide:
Thin Ruby server http://code.macournoyer.com/thin/ This is the easiest one
to work with on windows. If you are on Linux or Mac you would use passenger
or unicorn.
After you get all that going you can go ahead and put rails and bundler and
all the rest. Every app has certain gem dependencies that you will need to
deal with. There are still a few gems out there that don't play nice on
windows and require extra work. If you encounter one of these, first see if
you can just disable it (:require => false on Bundler).
There is also trickiness regarding apache config, and the windows hosts
file but you should deal with those when you get there. Hope this is enough
info to get you going.
