IT Support Servers and Desktop Solution: Installing WampServer on Windows 7 and 8

Installing WampServer

WampServer is a local server package for Windows, allowing you to install and host web applications that use Apache, PHP and MySQL.

This article will walk you through the steps to install WampServer on your computer.

1. Downloading WampServer

Make sure you select the correct installer file for your version of Windows. If you don’t know if your system is 32-bit or 64-bit, right-click on My Computer, and then click Properties.

For Vista, Windows 7, and Windows 8, look for System Type.

For Windows XP, look for x64 in the System description.

2. Start Installing WampServer

To start the installation process, you need to open the folder where you saved the file, and double-click the installer file. A security warning window will open, asking if you are sure you want to run this file. Click Run to start the installation process.

Next you will see the Welcome To The WampServer Setup Wizard screen. Click Next to continue the installation.

The next screen you are presented with is the License Agreement. Read the agreement, check the radio button next to I accept the agreement, then click Next to continue the installation.

Next you will see the Select Destination Location screen. Unless you would like to install WampServer on another drive, you should not need to change anything. Click Next to continue.

The next screen you are presented with is the Select Additional Tasks screen. You will be able to select whether you would like a Quick Launch icon added to the taskbar or a Desktop icon created once installation is complete. Make your selections, then click Next to continue.

Next you will see the Ready To Install screen. You can review your setup choices, and change any of them by clicking Back to the appropriate screen, if you choose to. Once you have reviewed your choices, click Install to continue.

WampServer will begin extracting files to the location you selected.

Once the files are extracted, you will be asked to select your default browser. WampServer defaults to Internet Explorer upon opening the local file browser window. If your default browser isn’t IE, then look in the following locations for the corresponding .exe file:

Opera: C:\Program Files (x86)\Opera\opera.exe

Firefox: C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozille Firefox\firefox.exe

Safari: C:\Program Files (x86)\Safari\safari.exe

Chrome: C:\Users\xxxxx\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe

Select your default browser’s .exe file, then click Open to continue.

A Windows Security Alert window will open, saying that Windows Firewall has blocked some features of the program. Check whether you want to allow Apache HTTP Server to communicate on a private or public network, then click Allow Access.

The Setup screen will appear next, showing you the status of the installation process.

Once the progress bar is completely green, the PHP Mail Parameters screen will appear. Leave the SMTP server aslocalhost, and change the email address to one of your choosing. Click Next to continue.

The Installation Complete screen will now appear. Check the Launch WampServer Now box, then click Finish to complete the installation.

You should see the WampServer icon appear in the systray on the right side of your taskbar. If the icon is green, then everything is working properly. If the icon is orange, then there are issues with one of the services. If the icon is red, then both Apache and MySQL services aren’t running. You will need to resolve those issues before continuing.

3. Testing WampServer

Once you have completed the installation process, test that your installation is working properly by going tohttp://localhost/ in your browser. You should see the WampServer homepage displayed.

If the WampServer homepage does not display, you will want to check that your hosts file has localhost mapped to 127.0.0.1, and you aren’t running any other services on port 80, such as another local server (XAMPP, DesktopServer, etc.), WebDAV, or Skype.

You also need to check that phpMyAdmin is working by going to http://localhost/phpmyadmin/ in your browser. If you get the Cannot connect: invalid settings error message, then you’ll need to edit theC:\wamp\apps\phpmyadmin3.5.1\config.inc.php file in a plain text editor (your version number may be different), and ensure this option is set to true:

$cfg['Servers'][$i]['AllowNoPassword'] = true;

4. Configuring WampServer

After you’ve installed and tested WampServer, you will need to adjust some configuration options to complete your local setup.

4.1 PHP Configuration

Click on the WampServer icon, go to the php menu, and click on the php.ini option. This will open the php.ini file in your plain text editor. Adjust the following settings:

Set level of error reporting – remove the ; at beginning of line to enable:
error_reporting = E_ALL ^ E_DEPRECATED (~line 112)

Log PHP errors – remove the ; at beginning of line to enable:
error_log = "c:/wamp/logs/php_error.log" (~line 639)

Increase maximum size of POST data that PHP will accept – change the value:
post_max_size = 50M (~line 734)

Increase maximum allowed size for uploaded files – change the value:
upload_max_filesize = 50M (~line 886)

Once you have made the above changes, click Save.

4.2 Apache Configuration

To use custom permalinks in WordPress, you will need to enable Apache’s rewrite_module. Click on the WampServer icon, go to the Apache > Apache modules menu, then find and click rewrite_module to ensure it is enabled. WampServer will change the httpd.conf file, and restart Apache automatically.

5. Creating A MySQL Database With WampServer

Creating a database in WampServer is done via phpMyAdmin. You can access phpMyAdmin by enteringhttp://localhost/phpmyadmin/ in your web browser.

The main phpMyAdmin screen will appear. On the left is a list of databases that already exist: information_schema,mysql, performance_schema, and test. Do not delete these, as they are necessary for WampServer and phpMyAdmin to run properly.

To create a database, click Databases in the main navbar at the top.

On the Databases screen, you will need to enter the database name (for example, root_wordpress-trunk) in the left field, choose your database collation from the Collation dropdown box (utf8_unicode_ci), then click Create.

You will see a success message once the database has been created, and your new database will appear in the list on the left.

The default phpMyAdmin user, root, is automatically assigned to the database upon creation, and has no password. The database connection info you will need to use when installing WordPress locally will be:

/** The name of the database for WordPress */

define('DB_NAME', 'root_databasename');

/** MySQL database username */

define('DB_USER', 'root');

/** MySQL database password */

define('DB_PASSWORD', '');

/** MySQL hostname */

define('DB_HOST', 'localhost');

6. Shutting Down WampServer

To shut down WampServer, click on the systray icon and select Stop All Services to shut down the Apache and MySQL services. The icon will turn red once all services have been shut down.