[thelist] intro and beginner's question!

Burhan Khalid thelist at meidomus.com
Sat Apr 3 01:24:03 CST 2004


Richard Harb wrote:
[ trim ]
> Well, I found IIS difficult to install (well not install but to
> configure so that it would be reasonably safe ...)
> 
> Anyway. I think you might find that URL interesting:
> http://www.apachefriends.org/xampp-en.html
> 
> It's a complete Apache, PHP, Perl, mySQL, ...package that has
> everything included. Just unzip and run (ok, it helps to read the
> README ;)

These kinds of things have never settled well with me. Some packages are 
not maintained, others, if you want to upgrade (say Apache), you have to 
wait for the new package version to come out.

Maybe its me, but I don't find much mystery in installing Apache and PHP 
together.  The Apache install is very straight forward (especially on 
Windows). Download the installer .msi (or exe) file, double click, 
accept defaults, and wala...now you've got Apache.

Installing PHP involves these steps :

1. Download the .zip package for Windows (not the executable package, 
which includes autoinstallers -- but they don't work for Apache).  Also, 
the .zip package includes a lot more extensions than the executable.

2. Unzip the archive, rename the unzipped folder to php.

3. Move the php folder to any root directory (like c:\php)

4. Copy the php4ts.dll file (might be hidden since its a .dll file. In 
Windows, View --> Folder Options and enable the viewing of hidden files) 
to your c:\windows\system32 (for Windows XP/2000) folder.

5. Rename php.ini-recommended to php.ini

6. Copy php.ini to c:\windows directory

7. Open your http.conf file in any text editor. If you are using Apache2 
and accepted the default install location, then it should be in 
C:\Program Files\Apache Group\Apache2\conf\

8. Add the following lines to it (if you changed your php directory, 
make appropriate changes):
    LoadModule php4_module "c:/php/sapi/php4apache2.dll"
    AddType application/x-httpd-php .php

9. Save the file

10. Restart Apache

Create a blank file, with the following line in it :

<?php phpinfo(); ?>

Save it with a php extension (lets call it info.php) and save it to your 
DocumentRoot folder. Again, the default location for this for Apache2 is 
  C:\Program Files\Apache Group\Apache2\htdocs

Now, browse to this file via http://127.0.0.1/info.php

If everything went well, you should see a page displaying information 
about your PHP installation.

For MySQL :

1. Download the latest stable binary for Windows.

2. Double click on the file and accept default options to install MySQL

3. After the install is done, run winmysqladmin from your mysql server's 
bin directory. If you accepted the default location, this is 
c:\mysql\bin. You can run this by typing c:\mysql\bin\winmysqladmin in 
the Start --> Run dialog box.

4. When you run this utility for the first time, it will popup a window 
asking you for a username and password. This will be your admin username 
and password, so don't forget it :)

5. If you see a green traffic light icon next to your clock (bottom 
right hand corner of Windows), then MySQL is running.  This utility runs 
automatically on startup. To control MySQL, right click on the traffic 
light icon.

If you forget your admin username and password for MySQL, delete the 
my.cnf file from your c:\windows directory, and then run winmysqladmin 
to create a new password.


Heh ... didn't mean for this to be a tutorial on installing PHP, MySQL 
and Apache ... hopefully somoene finds this useful.


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