Beginners Guide To XAMPP.

XAMPP is made by Apache Friends (http://www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp.html). It allows you to setup your http server with ease. If you have tried setting up Apache on your desktop PC it can be very hard to configure especially for Windows machines, XAMPP allows you do basic setup all you need in one setup file.

It will offer to install Apache, PHP, MySQL and Perl instead of installing them separately.

So I’m going to talk you through the installation to check your doing it all right so we are going to download XAMPP i downloaded XAMPP Windows 1.5.4a you can download it here (http://www.apachefriends.org/download.php?xampp-win32-1.5.4a-installer.exe).

So i went throught the installation before hand this is my results

Choose language

Install destination (C:\program files)

Waiting for install…

Finish

Popup “install XAMPP Servers (Apache, MySQL or Filezilla FTP) as service?” Yes

Popup “install Apache 2 as service?” Yes

Popup “Apache 2 service was installed successfully! (ports: 80 +443)” Ok

Popup “Install MySQL as service?” Yes

Popup “MySQL service was installed successfully! (port: 3306)” Ok

Popup “Install Filezilla FTP service?” Yes

Popup “Install service” Yes

Popup “Auto start service” Yes

Popup “Start server?” Yes

Popup “Congratulations! The installation was successful! Start the XAMPP Control Panel Now?” Yes

Then your control panel should look like this

If you don’t have one of these running e.g. Apache you want to click ‘Start’

Check apache installed go to htdocs which if you followed the default install it should be placed here “C:\Program Files\xampp\htdocs” I recommend making a shortcut to the folder simply for ease of use.

What we want to do is remove

• Apache_pb.gif

• Apache_pb.png

• Apache_pb2.gif

• Apache_pb2.png

• Apache_pb2_ani.gif

• Favicon.ico

• Index.html

• Index.php

So now we have a clean slate to start our work on, so put your website files into it e.g. index.php which you have created. Now to test this in your browser we are going to type in 127.0.0.1 or localhost this will bring up your apache server allowing you to see index.php. Now lets get to grips with what else comes with XAMPP, we are going to type in http://127.0.0.1/xampp so when it comes up click your language and we are ready to roll, you may of seen a lot of these things before such as phpmyadmin which you should be familiar with if you use things like ‘cpanel’ phpmyadmin allows you to create your MySQL databases easily on your server, it will talk you through what you need to do on it.

If you cant access it via 127.0.0.1 or localhost please check your firewall you must have these ports open 80, 443 and 3306