Recently, I’ve been introduced to a free open-source software package that allows us to set up an emulated web server hosting environment for installing and testing WordPress locally on a personal computer. This software is called XAMPP and it’s an easy-to-install Apache distribution containing MySQL, PHP and Perl. Currently, XAMPP is available for operating system Linux, Windows, Mac OS X and Solaris.

Where To Get XAMPP?

A link to the XAMPP download page for each operating system can be found here.

I have downloaded  XAMPP .EXE Installer for Windows and successfully installed it on my personal computer that runs under Windows Vista. If you’re interested to know how I did that, please continue reading…

How To Install XAMPP?

Now, let me show you in step by step on how to install XAMPP and make Windows Vista computer a web server. At this time of writing, the latest version is XAMPP Windows 1.7.3 (the installer file is xampp-win32-1.7.3.exe).

1. Download the XAMPP .EXE Installer for Windows.

2. Double-click the .EXE Installer.

3. Install XAMPP to the default destination folder (C:).

4. Wait until installation progress bar to turn completely green. A command prompt window will pop up after that.

5. Leave the default value and press <Enter> key. Repeat the step until you see this prompt:

6. Type ’1′ and press <Enter> key. Wait until XAMPP Control Panel Application appears on the screen.

7. ‘Tick‘ the Svc for Apache to start Apache service. Click ‘OK‘ button when dialog box appears.

8. ‘Tick‘ the Svc for MySql to start MySql service. Click ‘OK‘ button when dialog box appears.

9. Click ‘Start‘ button to start Apache service. Wait until the ‘Running‘ text appears.

10. Click ‘Start‘ button to start MySql service. Wait until the ‘Running‘ text appears.

At this juncture, your XAMPP Control Panel Application should look like this.

11. Enter ‘http://localhost/xampp‘ on your web browser.

12. Congratulations if you receive a message showing that “You have successfully installed XAMPP on this system!” as shown below.

Have you successfully installed XAMPP on your personal computer? If successful, please proceed to the next steps.

How To Set Up MySQL Database for WordPress?

Now, I’m going to show you how to configure MySQL database for WordPress.

1. Enter ‘http://localhost/phpmyadmin‘ on your web browser.

2. Under MySQL localhost section, enter database name as ‘wordpress_db‘ and click ‘Create‘ button. You’ll receive a message showing that ‘Database wordpress_db has been created‘. Take note: This value ‘wordpress_db‘ will be used at the later stage when we configure WordPress.

3. Go back to phpMyAdmin Home (‘http://localhost/phpmyadmin‘) again.

4. Click on ‘Privileges‘ tab and click on a link: ‘Add a new user‘.

5. Fill in the form. For the User name field, enter ‘wordpress_user‘. For host, select ‘Local‘. Take note: This value ‘wordpress_user‘ will also be used at the later stage when we configure WordPress.

6. For better security, just click ‘Generate‘ button to randomly generate a password.

7. Write down the User name and Password generated on your screen. Take note: Never use the password shown in the image above.

8. Under ‘Global privileges‘ section, click on ‘Check All‘.

9. Click ‘Go‘ button. If everything goes well, you’ll see a message saying that ‘You have added a new user‘.

10. Under the ‘Database-specific privileges‘ section, for the ‘Add privileges on the following database’ field, select ‘wordpress_db‘ from the list. This will add ‘wordpress_user‘ as a database user of wordpress table, wordpress_db.

Alright, you’ve just set up a MySQL database for WordPress using phpMyAdmin. Please give yourself a pat in the back before moving on!

How To Install WordPress Locally On Your Computer?

1. Download latest version of WordPress and save it on your computer.

2. Navigate to ‘C:xampphtdocs‘ folder.

3. Open up the WordPress ZIP file you downloaded and copy ‘wordpress‘ folder to the ‘htdocs‘ folder.

4. Inside the wordpress folder, open ‘wp-config-sample.php‘ file using notepad or your favorite text editor. My favorite text editor is ConTEXT.

5. Fill in the information with your database information and save it as wp-config.php in the same folder. Take note: Please use the password you’ve written down earlier.

6. Enter ‘http://localhost/wordpress/wp-admin/install.php‘ on your web browser. If you did correctly, you should be greeted with a WordPress Installation screen.

7. Just fill in the Blog Title and Your E-mail. Then, click ‘Install WordPress‘ button.

8. Below screen shows WordPress installation successful. Take note: username and password generated on your screen will be used for WordPress admin login so please write it down .

9. Now you can open your WordPress Blog locally using this address: ‘http://localhost/wordpress‘.

10. To make any changes on your WordPerss Blog, go to WordPress admin login page at ‘http://localhost/wordpress/wp-admin‘, and login with your username and password generated earlier.

These are just the steps you need to do to install WordPress Blog locally on a personal computer. With this emulated web server hosting environment, you can test out different WordPress Themes and Plugins or any web scripts before making it live to your web hosting server.

Hope you find this guide useful and informative!