Installing Apache and PHP on your PC

So you want to install web server on your own computer and have downloaded
Apache and PHP. Please read

Installing
Web Server on your PC first, if in doubt.

Installing Apache web server

Installing Apache is a no-brainer. It is just as you install any other software.
Run the set-up, feed the information in each step and click finish to install.
It is a 4-5 step installation and wouldn’t take much time to get installed.
Be sure not install it as a Windows Sevice (default option).

After installation, fire-up your favorite browser. Type in http://localhost
or http://127.0.0.1 (both refer top the local server) in the
address bar and press enter. You’ll see a welcome page stating that your
installation was successful. If it doesn’t show up, go to Start->Programs->Apache
HTTP Sever->Control Apache Sever->START.

Installing PHP

Installation of PHP is too, straightforward but to integrate and configure
it to work with Apache is a bit cumbersome for a Windows user. Windows users
are more accustomed to GUI for configuring software whereas Apache and PHP like
most other Linux (UNIX) software requires manual configuration through configuration
files which needs to be edited.

PHP comes as a zip file as well as a MSI installation package. I don’t
know how it is to install PHP through MSI package; I myself did it with the
zip one. For the zip file you just have to unzip the package in a root folder
like C:/PHP, D:/PHP. It is recommended to unzip the package in a root folder
and not inside folders like C:/Program Files/PHP, which are deep inside root.

[Update: You may download the MSI
package of PHP instead of the ZIP one which would do all the set-up and
configuration itself and you would have to do otherwise]

That’s it for this post, in the nest post I’m going to outline
the method of configuring Apache and PHP.

[Update: Read the next article Configuring
Apache Web Server and PHP]

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