XAMPP is a packaging of Apache, MySQL, PHP and
other software (phpMyAdmin, etc.) that provides a rapid setup of an AMP development environment for either
Windows or Linux. The Windows package is an especially easy way to get started with
both learning and
development on home systems that run Win98, Win2K or XP.
And nothing is actually "installed" or written in the Windows registry, so it's very clean.
The information that follows highlights this ease of setup.
You'll find the complete
installation instructions on the
Apache Friends website to be very
straightforward.
Installing PHP/MySQL on Windows using XAMPP requires nothing more than mastering the following skills:
If you've got these basic skills, you're ready to go!
That's it! You're done! It's really that easy!
You can now test your installation by going to a browser and entering the following URL:
http://localhost
You will see something that looks like Figure 1 below.
The "Apache" and "MySQL"
folders created by the XAMPP installation will have batch files for installing Apache
and MySQL as services. Run these two batch files. Then create a shortcut in your Windows Startup
folder that points to the file "ApacheMonitor.exe" which is located in the
\apache\bin subdirectory. Finally, go to the Windows Control Panel and
configure these services - Apache and MySQL - to start manually.
You want to minimize the services that run automatically for security purposes.
The next time you start up your Windows machine, the Apache
Monitor will appear in your system tray. Double-click on it to open it up, click on the
button to start up Apache. Click on the Services button to bring up the Services
window to start MySQL. The ApacheMonitor is handy for when you want to restart Apache after making changes to
the php.ini. (See Figure 2 below)
A few helpful notes:
Figure 2
While compiling your own versions of Apache, PHP and MySQL on a Linux box may be the preferred
way for advanced developers, XAMPP for Linux gets you up and running a lot quicker and is the
perfect solution for someone who is new to the world of LAMP.
A few helpful notes:
You'll find additional information on XAMPP at http://www.apachefriends.org.
Contributors to this note include the following:
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