Hello all, let's start our PHP developer journey now. I hope you already read my post regarding how to become a PHP Developer? If you are still unaware of it then please go through it. It's here.
To become a good PHP developer you must first make your hands dirty by accessing this tool and installing it on to your machine. The tool's name is XAMPP. Its Free tool which is available here. I suggest you to download an "Installer" version. Once the downloading completes, what you have to do is, just wait for some time. We will have a small introduction on XAMPP.
So, what is XAMPP? What is its usage?
1. XAMPP is the acronym for X-Cross Platform(Windows,Linux,Solaris,Mac) + A-Apache + M-MySQL + P-PHP + P-Perl. See the above picture for clear details.
2. Its open source and free. Developed and maintained by a community called "Apache Friends".
3. With this tool any web developer or designer can develop the webiste without accessing the internet on their local machine.
Installation and Running of XAMPP
Step 1:
As every windows user knows how to install a .exe file. But anyhow its my responsibilty to show you the steps for installing XAMPP on windows machine. Double click on the downloaded version of XAMPP. The file looks like xampp-win32-1.7.3.exe for me. May be the version changed for you when you started downloading. Don't worry. Whatever the version the installation steps are same for all. Now see the below screen how it looks like.
From the above picture, you can see the XAMPP installation stores by default in the C:/ directory. But its your wish wherever you want to store you can store it, but by default its in C:/ directory. Use the default directory.
Step 2:
Start you XAMPP installation by clicking on the "install" button. The installation goes on. See the below screen.
Once the above screen disappears you will see a Black Screen like Command Prompt screen in which you will be asked to do some configurations. Don't get scared the steps are simple. See the below screen. The black screen will ask you to "Add shortcuts of XAMPP on desktop or not". If you want to add it onto the desktop then type 'y' or else 'n' and press "Enter".
In this step it will prompt you to configure the XAMPP paths correctly. Here you will have 2 options 'y' for XAMPP path configuration correctly and 'x' to exit the setup. So type 'y' for configuring the XAMPP path correctly and press "Enter". See below screen.
In this step, it will prompt you to "make portable XAMPP without drive letters". Actually i don't understand the difference between selecting both the options. So blindly i typed 'n'. I suggest you to enter 'n' only and press "Enter". See below screen.
In this step, it will show you the different option. Simply press "Enter". See below screen.
In this step, by default it will configure the time zone settings and location settings based on your geographic location in the files called 'php.ini' and 'my.ini'. So simply press "Enter". See below screen.
In this step, it will prompt you to "start XAMPP" or do some modifications of existing made configurations if you want. But its not necessary. Simply type 'x' to complete the installation and press "Enter". See below screen.
That's all for now. I hope you understand how to install XAMPP. If you have any queries or find any difficulties in installing XAMPP on to your machine then don't worry i have a comments section you post your comments and queries there. In the next article, we will see how to use XAMPP tool for developing PHP Web Applications and PHP projects. Happy coding.
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Thanks for your fine article.
ReplyDeleteWhy would you want Apache server on Windows?!
Windows uses IIS server...
Linux can use Apache server!
Of course you can run Apache server on Windows if you want/must with an Apache for Windows or Xampp install on Win7(& a few years ago I did use XAMPP myself successfully on Windows-but now on Windows I use IIS).
You can install PHP on Windows and use with IIS server and program in PHP quite satisfactorily.
Thanks for your PHP articles-best wishes
Thanks for following this tutorial..the thing here is you can run php on both apache and iis but Apache is best compatible with PHP. and in the real world programming if you want to redirect url's then Apache is at its best. so most programmers prefer apache over iis.
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