How to configure wampserver on my PC?

WAMP stands for Windows Apache, MySQL and PHP. A great majority of websites are run by a trio of services - Apache, MySQL and PHP. Apache is the web server, which handles browser requests and sends the information across the internet to your browser. PHP is the programming language that many sites are written in - this creates dynamic content which in turn is sent to Apache, which sends the data to your browser. And finally, MySQL is the database which stores the information for programs. PHP is used to access this database.

It is a tried and tested trio which works phenomenally well. Usually to gain access to this trifecta, you need to purchase hosting, and this hosting is usually run in a far away datacenter running on a Linux server. However, not many people know that it is available locally, and for Windows as well. You can use these services for running your own applications, and also for locally testing software you are writing, before uploading code to a production server.

There are several ways to get these services running locally. Each service, by itself, has Windows installers. That being said - once the programs are installed, you need to know how to configure the services. That may not be simple unless you happen to be a system administrator.

Step 1

Download the latest WampServer. As of the writing of this article, it includes Apache 2.2, PHP 5.2 and MySQL 5.0.

Step 2

Run the installer. It will warn you to uninstall WAMP5 1.x if you have installed that already. You can use the defaults and it should install without problem.

Step 3

Start the services. You will see a small icon in your taskbar. Left click on it (right clicking does not display the right menu) and select “go online”. The icon will then make a little animation, and your services will be online. You can view your homepage by going to http://localhost/.

Thats it! Wamp is now running. You are ready to install your application, or start learning some PHP! The public website directory is ‘c:\wamp\www\‘. Any directory you create in this directory, shows up as a ‘project’ on the main index page.

Do you want to know Advanced Settings of wampserver? Follow the link.