How To Install WordPress On A Windows Localhost
WordPress, the most popular blogging platform can be installed for testing purposes on a public web server or on a computer (localhost) with Windows, Linux, Solaris or MacOS operating system, as long as the minimum requirements exist (PHP version 4.3 or higher, MySQL 4.0 or higher).
For Windows, there are many free to download all in one solutions containing PHP and MySQL. For example, XAMPP provides Windows users a full PHP / MySQL application testing environment.
After you download and unzip the distribution archive into the document root or default directory (it could be named public_html, www or htdocs) on the web server, in the web browser address bar (the server must be started) the WordPress automatic installer can be found at the URL http://localhost/wordpress or http://127.0.0.1/wordpress, if the archive content was extracted into a directory called wordpress.
The automatic installation script must be able to create the configuration file wp-config.php, otherwise it must be manually obtained by editing wp-config-sample.php and saving the new file as wp-config.php.
The configuration file stores the database connection details and after the installer checks their validity (if a connection to a MySQL database is possible), a WordPress blog with sample data with installed. In the final installation step, the default user name and password for an account with full administrative rights are displayed and can be used to perform the login action to the blog dashboard.
From the administration area, various blog features can be configured. For example, the user is able to change the default template or modify certain parameters within it, to add new website elements and more.
The WordPress installation on a localhost has many advantages for development and testing of new websites, like rapid changing of a certain configuration of the web server environment. As a consequence, with minimum effort the optimal structure of a blog can be rapidly found.
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