Learn How To Install WordPress On A Windows PC Using XAMPP Server In Just About 10 Minutes Or Less.
WORDPRESS is an open source content management system that can be used to create, publish and manage a static or dynamic website. It is a free software that can be used to manage a single website or multiple websites from a single management interface. It comes with many cool features that enable anyone to build websites with Beautiful designs, powerful features, and functionality. It is always a good idea to deploy a test WordPress website on a local computer for trying out new designs and features you may want to add to your production website. This tutorial will guide you on how to download and install the WordPress content management system on a Windows 10, 8 or 7 PC. WordPress can be installed on windows using the XAMPP server application, the WAMP server application as well as the WordPress Windows application. This tutorial aims to provide a guide on how to install wordpress using the XAMPP server windows application. If you prefer watching a video tutorial, click on the “WATCH YOUTUBE TUTORIAL” button.
REQUIREMENTS
In order to complete this tutorial successfully the following items are required. Please ensure to have these items available before taking implementation action on this tutorial :
1) 1 x Desktop or laptop computer with windows 7, 8 or 10 installed
2) Internet connection
3) XAMPP application
4) WordPress Installation Files
OVERVIEW
1) Download and install XAMP Server
2) Start and test the XAMPP Server
3) Download wordpress and copy wordpress files to the HTDOCS folder
4) Create a database for wordpress in MYSQL
5) Open a new web browser tab, go to 127.0.0.1/wp-admin and complete the wordpress installation wizard
Step 1: Install WordPress On A Windows PC Using XAMPP Server
1) XAMPP is a free and easy to use application. That turns a windows desktop into a web server. XAMMP ships with support for technologies such as MariaDB, PHP, and Perl. Click HERE to download XAMPP. Select any version from the available download options, we recommend downloading XAMPP that ships with the latest version of PHP.
2) After XAMPP has succesfully downloaded on to you computer, run the setup file to begin the installation process by clicking on the “NEXT” button.
3) Leave all the default selections on this section of the XAPMP setup. You may disable any components that you do not want / require by unchecking the checkbox next to each component. Please note that “APACHE” and MYSQL” are critical for wordpress to work properly. Click on the “NEXT” button to proceed.
4) On this stage of the XAMPP setup the XAMPP installation folder can be changed, however it is recommended to install XAMPP in the “C:\xampp\” folder. Click on the “NEXT” button to proceed.
5) Click on the “NEXT” button untill the installation starts and begins unpacking XAMPP files on to you computer, wait for this process to complete.
6) Launch the XAMPP control panel application found in the “C:\xampp” folder. Look for a program named “XAMPP-CONTROL” and open it.
7) XAMPP modules require TCP / IP communications ports for them to work and function properly and if any of the required ports is being utilised by any other windows applications, XAMPP will fail to start the module that needs that port. An example of this is shown in the image on the left where APACHE failed to start because port 443 is being used by another windows application.
A solution to this problem would to either change the APACHE port in the XAMPP control panel or to change the port used by the windows application so as to make it available for use by XAMPP modules.
Click HERE to learn how to change the the port number for a XAMPP module such as APACHE
8) After resolving TCP / IP connectivity issues start the modules by pressing on the start button for each module. The status of the running modules should be green.
9) Finally check that the XAMPP server has been setup successfully by going to http://localhost/ or https://billysoftacademy.com in your web browser of choice.
Step 3: Download And Install WordPress
10) Click HERE to download the WordPress installation files from the official wordpress website.
11) Create a folder for your new wordpress website in the “C:\XAMPP\HTDOCS\” folder and extract the wordpress archive file downloaded from wordpress.org in the previous step in to this folder.
12) Next create a MYSQL database that will be used by wordpress for saving all the content for the website. To do this, open the XAMPP control panel and click on the “ADMIN” button next to the MySQL component. This will open a browser window and launch the PHPMYADMIN web application.
Alternatively go to http://localhost/phpmyadmin/ in any web browser.
13) In PHPMYADMIN click on the “DATABASES” button. This will open a page with mysql database creation option.
14) On the “DATABASES” page enter a meaningfull name in the “DATABASE NAME” text input box and click on the “CREATE” button. Unlike installing WordPress on a production internet web server, it is not critical to create a database user.
Start The WordPress Setup Wizard
15) The next step to do is to start the wordpress setup wizard. Open a web browser and go to http://localhost/testwordpress. Select your language from the list and click on the “CONTINUE” button
16) Here you configure the MySQL database connection details. The database details should be as follows :
Database Name = database name created in PHPMyAdmin
Username = “root”
Password = leave blank
Click on the “SUBMIT” button and the “RUN THE INSTALLATION”button to proceed
17) Customize the wordpress installation by providing information such as your website name in the “SITE TILE” text input box and also a username and password that will be used when editing and publishing pages and articles on the wordpress website.
18) Once installation completes successfully you will be redirected to the wordpress page. Enter the username and password that you specified in the previous step to login. The wordpress dashoard is where you can do administrative tasks such as chnage the theme of your website and publish pages and articles.
19) Awesome! You have successfully installed wordpress on a Windows PC!
