Install and setup Apache + MySQL + PHP on Windows

Antonin Neumann — Tue, 01 Oct 2019 11:27:40 +0000

Download

You can download the required installer via links given below:

Apache for Windows: https://www.apachelounge.com/download/
PHP 7 for Windows (select Thread Safe): https://windows.php.net/download/
MariaDB for Windows: https://downloads.mariadb.org/
FakeSMTP (needed for Windows) http://nilhcem.com/FakeSMTP/download.html

MariaDB

Firstly install MariaDB server
If you needed you can change port during installation process. If you changed it then you improve you must connection string in PHP.

Apache 2.4 server

Install the latest C++ Redistributable Visual Studio 2017: https://www.microsoft.com/en-in/download/details.aspx?id=48145

Unzip downloaded Apache archive to the C:\Apache24\ (or somewhere else) directory.
After unzipping, go to the folder C:\Apache24\conf\ and open the httpd.conf file by any text editor.
In this file change this line

# ServerName www.example.com:80

withhttpd.conf

ServerName localhost
Find all occurrences of AllowOverride None
and change them to AllowOverride All
Enable mod_rewrite by uncomment following line
#LoadModule rewrite_module modules/mod_rewrite.so

Register Apache service

open console and go to Apache directory cd Apache24/bin
then type following command httpd -k install
now you can see Apache service in Services

Some PRO tips

Change your DocumentRoot

You can change default directory where Apache will be looking for websites

DocumentRoot "L:/"
<Directory "L:/">
    Options Indexes FollowSymLinks
    AllowOverride All
    Require all granted
</Directory>

Add custom virtual hosts w/ local domains

You can also create virtual host with custom local domain for each your projects. Append following to httpd.conf file (for each project):

<VirtualHost 127.0.0.1:80>
    ServerAdmin your.name@gmail.com
    DocumentRoot "L:/MyProject"
    ServerName www.myproject.loc
    ServerAlias myproject.loc
    ServerAlias www.myproject.lc
    ServerAlias myproject.lc
    ErrorLog "logs/myproject.log"
</VirtualHost>

Then you must edit the hosts file, in Windows is located in C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc. In this file append following line
- 127.0.0.1 www.myproject.loc myproject.loc www.myproject.lc myproject.lc

Change Apache default port

You can change default port where Apache server will be listen
- just change Listen 80 to e.g. Listen 8008
- and restart service
From now you see your website on http://localhost:8008/

PHP

Unzip downloaded PHP archive to the C:\php7\ (or somewhere else) directory.
Rename or copy php-ini-development.ini to php.ini
Open php.ini and edit:
- Find section Dynamic Extensions and uncomment extension which you want to load, here is listing good base of enabled extensions: bz2, curl, fileinfo, intl, imap, mbstring, mysqli, openssl, pdo_mysql, pdo_sqlite, sqlite3, xsl
- Then change SMTP port to smtp_port = 2525
Add PHP in system environment variable.
- in cmd type setx path "%PATH%, C:\php7" /M
Open Apache configuration file (c:\Apache24\conf\httpd.conf) again
- and append following lines:

PHPIniDir "C:/PHP7"
AddHandler application/x-httpd-php .php
LoadModule php7_module "C:/PHP7/php7apache2_4.dll"

Then change DirectoryIndex from index.html to:

<IfModule dir_module>
    DirectoryIndex index.php
</IfModule>

FakeSMTP

FakeSMTP is Java application which simulate SMTP server for local developing on Windows.
You can start it with following command: start java -jar C:\sw\faceSMTP\fakeSMTP-2.0.jar --start-server --background --port 2525 --bind-address 127.0.0.1 --output-dir L:\_emails
Or you can create command file (e.g.: fakesmpt.cmd) with following content:

@echo off
start java -jar C:\sw\faceSMTP\fakeSMTP-2.0.jar --start-server --background --port 2525 --bind-address 127.0.0.1 --output-dir L:\_emails
exit

DEV Community: Antonin Neumann

Install and setup Apache + MySQL + PHP on Windows

Download

MariaDB

Apache 2.4 server

Register Apache service

Some PRO tips

Change your DocumentRoot

Add custom virtual hosts w/ local domains

Change Apache default port

PHP

FakeSMTP