Tutorial to setup WAMP on Windows XP Home or Pro
- Apache v2
- PHP v5
- MySql v4.1
- phpMyAdmin
Personally, I do my webdev on Linux, but needed to figure this out for a Windows XP Home user. I found it very easy to setup, but only because I have a lot of experience with these products. For a newbie, I can imagine this process would be very confusing. So as of today, 7/4/2005, these are good instructions to follow step-by-step to get this working. In this tutorial, I do not attempt to tell you HOW to use Apache, MySql, PHP, or phpMyAdmin. Instead, I explain only enough to get it all downloaded, installed, configured, and tested.
As fast as things change, these instructions may not be accurate in 30 days, but here goes...PLEASE follow these directions in the order listed.
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Apache - The Web Server
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I am not providing a direct link to a download since the links can change often, and Apache prefers you use a "local" mirror site to download from. So visit
http://httpd.apache.org/download.cgi and download the "Win32 Binary (MSI Installer)". The actual file name at time of this writing is
apache_2.0.54-win32-x86-no_ssl.msi.
Run the installer and follow the installation wizard using all the default options. When asked to provide a domain name, if you are just installing for personal local development and learning, you can enter anything you want. Try
mydomain.net for example. This same screen will prompt for a server name and an email address. The server name must include the domain name. So you could enter
www.mydomain.net. (In this case, the name of your computer is "www" and the full name is "www.mydomain.net". It does not have to match the actual computer name of your machine.) You can just enter your real email address--it wont matter.
If everything worked, you should now have Apache installed and configured as a Windows Service which means it will automatically start when you start Windows. You should have a new icon in your System Tray that is a little red Apache feather. The icon shows the status of your web server--green for running and red for stopped. You can click it to open the Apache Service Monitor. You use this to Stop, Start, and Restart the service. You will need to restart the service anytime you make a configuration change---more on that later.
Confirm that the service is running. If not, start it. If it fails, then your problems are beyond this tutorial. Sorry. Thank you for playing. There is no need for you to continue beyond this point.
Congratulations! You have a web server! Open a browser and go to
http://localhost. You should see the Apache default page telling you your server is working. These pages are being served from the DocumentRoot, which by default is a folder named
htdocs within the location you installed Apache. Default is
C:\Program Files\Apache Group\Apache2\htdocs. I like to leave this folder alone, and create my own DocumentRoot to build my website in. To do this, create a folder named
www on your C:\ drive. Navigate to your C:\www folder, and create a new file using Notepad or your favorite text editor. (I recommend
PSPad.) Name it
index.html. Copy and paste the following into c:\www\index.html.
[HTML]
<html>
<head>
<title>My Own Local Web Server</title>
</head>
<body>
<h1>Hello, World!</h1>
</body>
</html>
[/HTML]
Now we need to edit the Apache configuration to point it to our c:\www folder as the DocumentRoot. To do this, again in your favorite text editor, open the Apache conf file. By default this is
C:\Program Files\Apache Group\Apache2\conf\httpd.conf. Find the line that looks like this:
DocumentRoot "C:/Program Files/Apache Group/Apache2/htdocs"
And turn it into this:
Save your changes. Using the Apache Service Monitor, Restart the service. Open a browser and go to
http://localhost. You should see your new home page which is c:\www\index.html.
Whew! Step 1 complete.
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PHP - The Scripting Language
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Visit
http://www.php.net/downloads.php and download "PHP 5.0.4 zip package". The actual file name at time of writing was
php-5.0.4-Win32.zip.
Create a folder named
php on your C:\ drive. Unzip the file into c:\php.
Make a copy of
c:\php\php.ini-recommended and name it
c:\php\php.ini
Right-click My Computer and choose
Properties. Choose the
Advanced tab. Click the
Environment Variables button at the bottom. In the
System Variables section, click
Path, then the
Edit button. At the end of the path value, add
;C:\php;C:\php\ext Click OK and keep clicking OK until you exit out of the Properties. Reboot your computer. Grab a drink. Don't worry, I'll wait for you here.
Welcome back. Now we have to modify the Apache conf so it knows to use the PHP module. To do this, again in your favorite text editor, open the Apache conf file. Find the LoadModule section that begins with a comment line that looks like this:
# Dynamic Shared Object (DSO) Support
At the end of the list of LoadModule lines, add these 4 lines:
# PHP5
LoadModule php5_module "c:/php/php5apache2.dll"
AddType application/x-httpd-php .php
PHPIniDir "c:/php/"
Also, find this line:
DirectoryIndex index.html index.html.var
And change it to this:
DirectoryIndex index.html index.html.var index.php
Now, save your changes, and restart Apache. (By now, you should know how to restart Apache.)
Create a new file named c:\www\index.php. Copy these lines into it:
Save this file. Rename c:\www\index.html to c:\www\old_index.html.
Open
http://localhost in your browser. You should see the phpinfo page that displays your PHP version at top and a lot of system and user information tables. (Check out the phpinfo() function at
http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.phpinfo.php )
If this did not work for you, your issues are beyond the help of this tutorial. Sorry. Thank you for playing. There is no need to continue beyond this point.
Congratulations! You not only have a web server, you have successfully incorporated the PHP scripting module into Apache.
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MySql - The Database
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Visit
http://dev.mysql.com/get/Downloads/M...m/pick#mirrors to download the MySql 4.1 Windows Essential (x86) package. The actual filename at time of writing was
mysql-essential-4.1.12a-win32.msi.
Run the installer and use all the default values. When prompted for a root password, choose one you can remember. Normally, security is an issue here, but if this is just for you to learn and play, it does not matter much.
Once the installation is complete, MySql should be configured as a Windows Service which means it will auto start when you start Windows. You should have a new MySql folder in your Start/All Programs menu. One of the items in the menu is
MySQL Command Line Client. You can use this to do all your database administration from creating databases and tables to inserting data, etc. However, most people are not very comfortable using the command line interface, so later, I'll show you how to setup phpMyAdmin--a browser-based GUI tool. For now, though, use the MySQL Command Line Client to test your installation. Open the command line client to see a password prompt. Enter your root password. If successful, you'll see something like this:
Welcome to the MySQL monitor. Commands end with ; or \g.
Your MySQL connection id is 60 to server version: 4.1.12a-nt
Type 'help;' or '\h' for help. Type '\c' to clear the buffer.
mysql>
If this does not work for you, your issues are beyond this tutorial. Sorry. Thank you for playing. There is no need to continue beyond this point.
Congratulations! You now have a working MySql database server.
Now you need to configure PHP to work with MySql. Open
c:\php\php.ini in your favorite text editor. There are 2 lines you need to uncomment. Change this line:
;extension=php_mbstring.dll
To:
extension=php_mbstring.dll
Change this line:
To:
Save your changes. Restart the Apache service. (That's right--since we are using php as an Apache module, anytime you change either the Apache conf file or the PHP ini file, you must restart Apache to see your changes.)
To test that you have PHP configured to work with MySql, create a file named c:\www\dbtest.php. Copy and paste the following into it: [PHP]<?php
$db_server = "localhost";
$db_user = "root";
$db_pwd = ""; //Enter your root password here.
$db_db = "mysql";
if (!$cnn = mysql_connect($db_server, $db_user, $db_pwd)) {
echo mysql_error();
exit();
}
if (!mysql_select_db($db_db, $cnn)) {
echo mysql_error();
exit();
}
$sql = "select * from help_category";
if (!$res = mysql_query($sql, $cnn)) {
echo mysql_error();
exit();
}
while ($row = mysql_fetch_array($res, MYSQL_ASSOC)) {
$data[] = $row;
}
?>
<html>
<head>
<title>Apache/PHP/MySql Test</title>
</head>
<body>
<h1>Help Categories</h1>
<?
echo "<style>table.dump { font-family:Arial; font-size:8pt; }</style>";
echo "<table class=\"dump\" border=\"1\" cellpadding=\"1\" cellspacing=\"0\">\n";
echo "<tr>";
echo "<th>#</th>";
foreach($data[0] as $key=>$val) {
echo "<th><b>";
echo $key;
echo "</b></th>";
}
echo "</tr>\n";
$row_cnt = 0;
foreach($data as $row) {
$row_cnt++;
echo "<tr align='center'>";
echo "<td>".$row_cnt."</td>";
foreach($row as $val) {
echo "<td>";
echo $val;
echo "</td>";
}
echo"</tr>\n";
}
echo "</table>\n";
?>
</body>
</html>[/PHP] Be sure to put your mysql root password in the 5th line. Save your changes. Open
http://localhost/dbtest.php in your browser. You should see the contents of the help_category table in the default "mysql" database.
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phpMyAdmin - Browser-based GUI Admin tool for MySql
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Download the latest stable release of phpMyAdmin. You can find this by starting at
http://www.phpmyadmin.net/home_page/index.php. At time of this writing, the latest stable release was 2.6.3. When I clicked to download it, though, I ended up with v2.6.2. No problem--it works. I got it at
http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/p...3.zip?download
The actual filename at time of writing was
phpMyAdmin-2.6.2-pl1.zip.
Create a folder named
c:\www\phpMyAdmin. Unzip the file into this new folder. Open
C:\www\phpMyAdmin\config.inc.php in your favorite text editor. Find this section, and input your mysql username and password. You should enter 'root' as the username, and the root password you used when you installed MySql.
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['user'] = ''; // MySQL user
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['password'] = ''; // MySQL password (only needed
Be careful as there are other places in the config file that look like places to put your username and password. Find the lines that look exactly like what I listed above--and only change those 2 lines.
Save your changes. Open
http://localhost/phpMyAdmin in your browser. If you do not see the phpMyAdmin tool, then your issues are beyond this tutorial. Sorry. Thank you for playing. There is no need to continue beyond this point.
Congratulations! You now have a WAMP system with phpMyAdmin to administrate your database. Enjoy the journey.
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